For a moment there, he had me — I thought the Antonio Villaraigosa I had hoped five years ago would save LA from misrule and mismanagement had awakened from his amnesia and was stepping forward to provide the city with desperately needed leadership at a time of crisis.
Where the City Council on Wednesday had shown itself to be gutless and indecisive, the mayor stood tall at the microphone and announced he was carrying out the drastic budget deficit measures recommended by City Administrative Officer Miguel Santana.
“Mayor Orders 1,000 Layoffs” screamed the headlines on TV, newspapers, websites and emails.
But on further examination, it appears in the fine print (budget-mayor-ltr-100204.pdf) that he is “eliminating” 1,000 jobs from the general fund payroll and moving the workers into other jobs in the DWP, Harbor, Airport or paid for with special funds.
They are phantom layoffs that achieve exactly what the City Council wanted to achieve 30 days from now, what the unions have demanded.
They are savings on paper that do nothing to solve the city’s real financial problems caused by the spectacular $11 billion that taxpayers owe to the pension funds.
Once again, the mayor has raised our hopes and then dashed them.
This is exactly the kind sleight of hand that has become the hallmark of City Hall, a political stunt intended to beguile the uninformed and the indifferent and prop up the mayor’s standing at a time he couldn’t beat Zuma Dogg in a recall election.
For that moment of my delusion, I thought we’d see the mayor address the Council today at its final meeting in Van Nuys — another abandoned commitment to reach out to the public — and lay out a plan of action that would restore order to the city’s finances and preserve public services.
Instead, we find the mayor is continuing down the road to oblivion for himself and for us.
It’s clear he will carry out his plan to gut services, sell off assets and do the bidding of the unions without bringing all the constituencies of the city to the table to figure out a long-term solution that will protect the jobs of employees, balance the budget and provide the services needed for a healthy city.
Yet another missed opportunity, a third strike.
Watch how quickly the city’s parking structures to the very companies that owe the city more than $100 million in back taxes, the companies that have poured thousands of dollars into city political campaigns even as they were nothing but scofflaws ripping off the public
Watch how quickly AEG takes over the Convention Center, the white elephant that has cost taxpayers hundreds of millions of dollars, to run it as part of their luxury hotel and entertainment complex at LA Live and Staples Center. Digital billboards will quickly be plastered all around the Convention Center to enrich AEG’s billionaire owner while the public gets pennies on the dollar.
Watch how the golf courses, Ontario Airport, the zoo and so much else winds up in the hands of insiders and profiteers while the city borrows billions and mortgages our future.
There is no one among our elected officials who will stand in the way of this high-speed train to worsening poverty in a bankrupt city.
They have ignored the warnings of their financial advisers. They have left the documents showing how serious this crisis is unread beyond the cover sheets. They have ignored the will of the people.
And yet, we all hold out hope somehow that common sense will prevail, that something will turn the tide.
We meet and talk and strategize and offer alternatives to inattentive ears. We beg for respect and get nothing but lip service.
If only we the people could transfer our lives to another place as if nothing was wrong…If only we could throw all these nobody politicians into the trash heap of history…If only we could re-create our city into a series of smaller towns that could be managed for the benefit of all with the full participation of all…