City unions say they gave back in June, they gave more in September and they’re not going to give back any more.
Neighborhood Council members say they too gave back and they have a right under the City Charter and city law to be fairly treated.
All through the city, the interests, special and not so special, are stirring to protect what they’ve got or in the case of the business community looking forward to profiting handsomely by creating jobs, presumably the poverty level jobs City Hall is so well known for, with subsidies worth three times what the workers are paid.
This is exactly what the mayor and City Council leaders had in mind when they ordered City Administrative Officer Miguel Santana to work so closely with them to develop a plan to stave off BANKRUPTCY– the 10-letter word that would forever be emblazoned on their political tombstones.
And so we get a hodgepodge of drastic cuts in staff and public services, huge fee increases, legally questionable raids on special funds, dumps of hundreds of city workers into jobs at the Harbor, Airport and DWP that they have no particular qualifications for but likely will wind up getting big raises for taking.
Most of all we get to see the city we love dismantled piece by piece, privatized to raise cash to get through this year and maybe next no matter how it perpetuates this financial crisis and imperils the city’s future for decades to come.
SEIU 721 leader Julie Butcher has come up with this list of what could be privatized under the CAO’s plan: Fleet services, Street Improvement projects, Street Sweeping, Trees, Printing,
Median Island maintenance, El Pueblo, Landscaping & maintenance, LA Zoo, Golf courses
20% of Recreation & Parks landscaping, 1 animal shelter, Animal license canvassing, Parking meters, Parking structures, Convention Center, Ontario airport.
There’s actually a lot more, nearly everything the city does except police and fire services would be gutted or sold off. And if we actually go along with Antonio’s Folly, it won’t be long before we are looking for buyers for LAX, the DWP and the 1,300 pristine acres of Chatsworth Reservoir, a developer’s dream.
This isn’t a plan to save LA. It’s a bill of indictment for the failure of the city leadership to provide efficient quality services at a reasonable price. Page after page proves their incompetence beyond a reasonable doubt.
If you have any doubt, I dare you to read through the 800 pages of documents CAO Santana and his staff produced to justify selling off our parking structures and even meters and the plan to