An old dog who’s been involved in LA politics for a long time once told me why our current leaders like Antonio and Fabian Nunez (former leader, now “consultant) tend to flaunt their power with the trappings of success usually associated with millionaires – expensive restaurants, great wine, designer clothes and a wink and a nod when it comes to ethics. They think it’s their turn, the old dog said.
I thought about this the other day when I read that Antonio, Fabian and former Ayatollah of the Assembly Willie Brown had dinner recently in one of Beverly Hills (note: not LA!) most expensive restaurants, Cut. (Great doggie bags, if somebody would like to try to bribe me.)
Willie Brown obviously thought it was his turn, too.
I think the old dog that shared this with me had it right. Just think about: If you met any of these guys when they were say 16, what do you think the odds were that they would be being among the most powerful leaders in California? A million to one? Maybe.
These guys are scrappers. They don’t have impressive educations. They operate from their gut. And because they hang out with lots of rich people who want things from them – remember their power – they tend to believe they should enjoy the same lifestyle.
That’s why a lot of people hate them. And I envy them. Remember, I live on kibble in Ron’s backyard.
And I’m scrappy too!
The Dog Trainer’s top dog columnist, Steve Lopez, did a dumb online poll last week, asking his readers for the “worst Angeleno of all time.” The winner? Not Richard “Night Stalker” Ramirez. Not Charles Manson. But Antonio!
The poll was ridiculous – and Lopez admitted it. But it says a lot about how people feel about LA right now, at least those who took the time to vote.
They are pissed off. They want a leader who can fix our problems, not a celebrity – even if it’s his turn.
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…
Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa broke his silence on the city budget
crisis Thursday afternoon and ordered layoffs of 1,000 city employees
as soon as possible and the transfer of 360 others to proprietary
departments and special-funded positions.
He also opened the
door to the immediate retirement of any employee who wishes to do so
and urged the City Council to transfer $40 million in uncommitted funds
to the rapidly depleting emergency reserve fund.
“We are living beyond our means” the mayor said at a 4 p.m. news conference.
“We
have difficult choices to make. We must protect our economic future.
Unfortunately, instead of making progress we are headed in the wrong
direction. That ends today “
Villaraigosa acted one day after
the City Council balked at approving layoffs or taking other steps to
erase a $208 million budget deficit. In fact, the deficit grew by $4
million even as they debated for eight hours Wednesday over what
actions to take and is growing by nearly $400,000 every day.
Invoking his authority under the City Charter, the mayor said:
“I am taking immediate action toward balancing this fiscal year’s
budget, strengthening the city’s credit rating and restoring the city’s
long-term fiscal health.”
He said the layoffs would affect
1,000 filled city positions as recommended by City Administrative
Officer Miguel Santana last Friday.
Also, the jobs open at the
Harbor, Airport and DWP will be filled by transferring general fund
employees to those positions or others paid for with special funds.
Employees have until 5 p.m. to request transfers or file for expedited
retirement, which could attract workers already at the maximum
retirement benefit of 75 percent of final pay.
The transfers will be effective on Feb. 16, leaving little time for the Council to intervene on his action.
“I will reserve my right as mayor to transfer any employee at any time
as needed to protect the city’s general and reserve funds,” the mayor
added.
In his press release, the mayor said:
“I do not
relish these decisions, but neither will I shy away from them or
pretend they don’t exist. Angelenos all over our City are making
tougher choices between food or their prescription drugs, between
school supplies and a doctor’s visit for their child, or between their
electric bill and their rent. It is time that we at City Hall follow
their lead, set priorities, and make the tough choices necessary to
protect our core responsibilities.”
The stage is set, the actors in place, everyone has rehearsed their lines — and the curtain is up on the drama that will determine the future of LA.
The masses of workers, neighborhood activists, arts lovers, disabled have joined in a chorus with a plaintive song, beating their chests while the princes and princesses of their realm bluster in a cacophony of discordant brays and hoots until they all come together in unison and sing the overture, “Woe is us.”
The shadowy silhouette of the lord of all, King AV, fills the background, breaking his imperious silence from time to time with his lament, “What about me…What about me…”
“Bankruptcy” this Wagnerian opera is called, its opening scene filled with gloom and dread and portents of disasters ahead. Whether it will lead to a new beginning or become the beginning of the end hangs in the balance with the future of LA at stake.
Everyone has offered solutions to the dilemma, all intended to protect what they have, hoping to save themselves from the black plague of bankruptcy.
The unity of the masses dissolves with the Neighborhood Councils singing the aria “We’ve got a right” with other communities of interest offer the counterpoint “We need your help, don’t forget about us.” The workers drown them out with the lively old tune, “We’ve got ideas,
so many ideas, 67 ideas to make our troubles go away, go away.” (Lyrics
provided here Coalition Worker Ideas.pdf}
The princes and princesses then take the front of the stage, each singing a different tune. Prince Alarcon, the absentee lord, screams “Soak the rich” while Prince Bernie offers “We gotta be tough,” Princess Janice “There’s enough for everyone, I love you all” and heir apparent Prince Eric sings his favorite song, “We are all one family, except you and you and you…”
Enter High Priest Miguel, whose calmness is the stuff of saints, his presence bringing stony silence to the assembled players.
“There is an answer to your plaints and prayers,” he sings. “I have it here right in my hand. If only you could read, if only you could read between the lines, you’d see the money lenders will save us this day, they will save the day.”
I could go on but I wouldn’t want to ruin the ending of this great LA drama but I’m not quite sure if it’s grand opera or soap opera.
So I leave it to you to write your own ending.
You can see it through a glass darkly, sliding down a slippery slope of phony solutions, reduced basic services, unending
conflict and unhappiness, in bankruptcy.
Or you can look on the bright side of things, and see this opening act as nothing more than the start of elaborate negotiations that will lead the cast to simplifying their world by going back to basics and each side giving up something, reductions
in salaries/benefits, higher taxes and fees.
Then, everyone would take a seat at the table of power for the grand finale: “We are one, one city, one people, all in this together…”
At the moment of truth, the nation’s highest paid city officials blinked Wednesday.
They blinked at layoffs. They blinked at eliminating or slashing funding for the disabled, for the elderly, for Neighborhood Councils, for Environment Affairs, Arts, Culture, for just about everything that was proposed to stave off bankruptcy.
They blinked and squinted in the face of the daunting task of cutting spending, cutting staff, streamlining government.
Watching hour after hour on Wednesday of the City Council confront the truth of what they have wrought was like suddenly being transported to a strange planet where everything works backwards.
Are they crazy? Or is it us for allowing them to get away with creating such a calamity?
The confusion, the ignorance, the vacillation, the nonsense — it was amazing. Even more incredibly, their efforts over eight hours of budget cutting actually increased the deficit from $208 to $212 million.
They didn’t even know they have allowed nearly 60,000 households to pay nothing for trash collection even as they tripled the fee for every other single family home in the city with a broken promise to hire more cops.
They didn’t know there’s no other community in California that gives more than a 30 percent reduction to the poor. They didn’t know their 100 percent subsidy was putting the Sanitation Department $7 million in the red even with the massive increase on everybody else.
They didn’t know because it was just one of a thousand irresponsible acts that allowed them to turn City Hall into a political machine that pandered to segments of the population and their concerns while they gave away the city in sweetheart deals to unions, contractors, developers and consultants.
They didn’t know and they didn’t care because they were big shots with free cars and fancy suits and perks and staff serving their every need.
Well, those days are over and they are scared to death. What are they going to do if they lose these cushy jobs, become lobbyists or maybe parking attendants at the city lots they want to sell to cover a small fraction of the deficit they created?
You couldn’t help but have a laugh when they asked bureaucrats to verify the eligibility of the 60,000 subsidized trash fee beneficiaries or found it was illegal to ask contractors to take a 10 percent cut in what they’re paid in exchange for preferential treatment on future contracts.
They were near tears when they heard there are only 300 jobs open at the Harbor, Airport and DWP to protect the 1,000 to 1,500 city workers who might be laid off. But that didn’t stop them from putting off starting the six-month process for layoffs for at least a month and possibly forever, if the majority gets its way.
And it didn’t stop them from urging those proprietary departments to cancel contracts so other city workers’ jobs can be saved even if it costs more or adding to the massive unfunded pension liability by adding 500 more workers to the 2,763 already getting sweetened retirement checks.
As the hours dragged by and they got giddy from having to put in a full day of work, it became clearer that there was a certain rationality to what they were doing.
Their political machine was leaking oil, the tires were flat, the body rusted out. They knew that from the Council Chambers packed with hundreds of volunteers and workers and people dependent on critical city services.
They were desperately trying to put the machine back together again to save themselves by assuring all the constituencies they really weren’t going to pay for the failure of the city’s leadership, that the plan put forward on behalf of the mayor by City Administrative Officer Miguel Santana would never touch them.
All they achieved was the waste of even more time, after months, years of dilly-dallying while the financial problems got worse.
Santana told them with remarkable calmness that the $200 million emergency fund is needed to cover this year’s deficit and needs to be replenished with the $100 million from selling parking structures and every other dollar they can scrape together.
It was necessary, he said, and not just in case of natural disasters. Credit agencies have already downgraded the city and will do so again unless they see money in the bank and a long series of credible actions or the cost of borrowing will rise sharply.
And that’s the real plan. The city intends to borrow billions to pay its current bills. It’s ready to sell off future revenue sources to pay its current bills. Its looted every dollar in special funds to pay its current bills.
And tomorrow? There’s no tomorrow, they will all be termed out and living high on their city pensions. It’s the rest of us that will have to live with the havoc they are creating..
Lots of news around the dog house today. First, Kevin Roderick of LAObserved.com, known in LA internet circles as the Westside White Guy, reported that Austin Beutner, the mayor’s new jobs czar, has contributed $5,000 to Republican Meg Whitman’s campaign for governor. Then, about 10 minutes ago, Bruno was slipped a transcript of a phone
call this morning from Jerry Brown to Antonio. I can’t reveal my
source, but the pup was recently photographed monkeying around in the
mayor’s backyard. (We dogs stick together.)
Jerry: Antonio, hi. It’s Jerry. How you doing? Antonio: Jesus, what time is it? Jerry who? Jerry: Jerry Brown, for chrissakes, the guy you didn’t want to run against for governor. It’s 10 o’clock, Antonio, wake up. Antonio:
I guess I shouldn’t have had ordered that last $800 bottle of wine last
night at Bouchon. But Keith and Ari insisted, and, hey, they were
buying. Those guys love me. Jerry: I hate those fancy
places. I read in Willie Brown’s column you had an expensive dinner
with him and Fabian at some place called Cut. Jeez, Antonio, the guy
hasn’t has a hit in years. Antonio: That’s Fabian Nunez, Jerry. He was once Assembly Speaker, like Willie and me. Jerry: You were Speaker? Antonio: What do you want, Jerry. I need to walk Monkey and get to City Hall. Jerry: You have a monkey? Antonio:
No. Monkey’s my girlfriend’s dog. If I don’t walk it, the beast dumps
all over the living room floor of my mansion. The servants hate that. Jerry: I live in a converted firehouse. It still has the pole. Anne loves it. Antonio: I’m sure. Now what are you calling about? Jerry: This guy Beutner. Antonio: Who? Jerry: Austin Beutner. Your new jobs czar. Antonio:
Oh, yeah. Now I remember. Riordan and Broad came up with him. Big
time financial guy until he fell off his bike or something. I got him
for a dollar a year. What’s the problem? Jerry: He gave five thousand dollars to Meg. Antonio: Who? Jerry: Meg Whitman, my likely Republican opponent. Ran EBay. Antonio: She was on Bay Watch? Jerry: No, Antonio, EBay, the internet company where people buy and sell stuff. Antonio: Never heard of it. Sounds like City Hall to me. Jerry: Never mind. What the hell is he doing contributing to my Republican opponent? Antonio:
I don’t know. Maybe Riordan told him to do it. He rides bicycles, too
(Dog barks in background) Would somebody shut the f…ing dog up!! I’m
on the phone with the next governor of California. Jerry: Oh, yeah. Thanks a lot for not running. Saves me a lot of aggravation. Antonio:
Like I had a choice after the damn girlfriend thing. I don’t
understand why those reporters didn’t believe I stopped wearing my
wedding ring because I lost weight. Jerry: The press sucks. Antonio: Tell me about it. Jerry: Well, I gotta go. Do me a favor and talk to Beutner. He’s on your payroll. Antonio: OK. I’m sure somebody around here has his number. Take it easy. And if you change your mind about running …… Jerry: I won’t. Bye. Antonio: Ciao.
City Hall’s plan to privatize 10 parking structures to cover its $208
million deficit without having to go into bankruptcy hit a snag Tuesday
— the biggest tax scofflaws in the city are parking lot operators.
For
years, city officials did little or nothing to collect the $400 million
owed it by companies and individuals — topping the list of debtors are
parking lot operators who owe the city more than $100 million.
In
an emotional and sometimes angry Council session Tuesday, the issue
came up as an embarrassment and obstacle to turning over operation of
the city’s lots to the same group of people who have ripped the city
off.
Nonetheless, the Council unanimously approved spending more
than $500,000 more for a total of $1.2 million to move forward with
studies to privatize its parking structures.
For a full report, got to OurLA.org and read stories headliined Parking Lot Privatization Triggers Heated Council Debate and Looking For Funds in LA Parking Structures,
Tax Scofflaws. Lists of top debtors headed by parking lot operators are also available..
We came as beggars and peasants pleading with the lords of the manor for mercy and they dispensed meager favors according to their whims. Hundreds of people with disabilities, the deaf and wheelchair-bound, Neighborhood Council volunteers, environmentalists, lovers of art and culture, all hoping somehow to protect what they have.
It was as if this was a medieval time and the black plague was ravaging our world, or in this case a plague of red ink caused by the failure of those masters of fiefdoms to tend to their flock.
It went on for 12 hours and harsh decisions were made, however tentatively, long after the beggars and peasants had gone back to their huts to pray some more.
In the end, it was clear enough that only a miracle could prevent the death of our city.
They called for reducing the Police and Fire departments, slashed funding for NCs in half to $22,500 while gutting their support staff, shied away from eliminating what little help they have given the disabled even as they proposed taking away from them and the elderly the 100 percent subsidy 58,393 of them get in subsidized trash collection.
As much as they hemmed and hawed, quibbled and wrung their hands, City Administrative Officer Miguel Santana relentlessly pursued his agenda of laying off 1,000 city workers, transferring 500 others into protected jobs, selling off assets like parking structures and downsizing every part of city government except, of course, the DWP, Harbor and Airport — the designated cash cows.
Even if all the dozens of cuts and finagles are actually executed, they still won’t be enough to do more than get the city through until July when even more layoffs and cuts will be needed since the $208 million deficit we have seven months into the fiscal year will balloon to $485 million and keep on soaring for years to come, five years, maybe 10, said Santana.
The Red Plague that has visited us was years in the making, Santana said, years of bad policies and poor management and sweetheart deals and giveaways to the rich and influential. He put it more gently than that but there was no mistaking his meaning.
The breakdown in our city government is so great that we can only do everything we can and hope and pray for a miracle.
So let us pray together — or better come together and change the conversation from one of death by a thousand cuts to one that ends this charade and overthrows these lords, resurrects the city and gives birth to a new spirit of LA.
I spent all my life struggling to put into words what I believe, what I feel, the truth as I see it. I thought somehow that is what it meant to be an American.
I wrote and edited tens of thousands of stories but it’s only been in the last two years working for love and not money that I began to find my voice as me.
On Monday, I came close during my two minutes in front of the Council Budget Committee and later during a two-minute segment on the NBC news show “The Filter with Fred Roggin” (re-broadcast Tuesday at 11:30 a.m.).
You can believe anything you want but this is what I believe.
A pop quiz: Which job is safer? A member of a Marine bomb squad in Iraq and Afghanistan (“The Hurt Locker” is Bruno’s Oscar pick for best picture, by the way), or general manager of LA’s Department of Animal Services? Watching the movie can be nerve rattling. Watching someone try to run Animal Services can be quite entertaining.
Talk about a no-win job. But if you’re interested, it’s open and the only specified qualification is having a driver’s licensei’ although I’d say a permit to carry a concealed weapon is also essential
“Francis of Assisi would have trouble in this town,” Bill Dyer, a veteran animal welfare advocate told the Dog Trainer (this is too easy), invoking the patron saint of animals (he’s my favorite) more than once when speaking of the general manager’s job.
As a one-time homeless dog, I don’t pretend to be objective on this subject. Well, OK, I don’t pretend to be objective on any subject. But this one involves what’s called a “no-kill” policy! Grrrrrr!
The Dog Trainer says “the successful candidate must be compassionate but business-minded, able to inspire the army of staffers who care for the city’s abandoned animals and lost pets; to survive interrogation by the L.A. City Council; and to appease the legions of devoted volunteers, rescuers and advocates in the city’s humane community.”
Add masochistic to the list.
The last guy, who quit last June, was raked over the coals by just about everybody and nearly lynched by his employees. The GM before him – who lasted just 13 months – had the lobby of his building smoke-bombed by animal activists.
Wondering where to apply yet? Here’s what the Trainer says you’ll face:
“The city hired a search firm, sent an e-mail survey to 450 so-called stakeholders in the animal welfare system and set up a focus group. In what one source called ‘a brainstorming session,’ the mayor met with a small group of animal welfare experts — including ‘dog whisperer’ Cesar Millan and Francis Battista, one of the founders of Best Friends Animal Society, a national animal-protection nonprofit that runs its own sanctuary.”
Cesar? That’s my favorite show, after “American Idol”
Antonio makes the final decision, of course. And I’ll bet you a steak bone that his current girlfriend, beauty queen turned TV reporter Lu Parker, might get involved. After all, her pooch, the adorable Monkey, was recently photographed romping in the mayor’s backyard.
I guess I don’t have to tell you how I feel about “no kill.” After all, if Ron’s wife, Saint Deborah, didn’t take me in after finding me in their shrubs, I probably would have ended in my own version of “Dead Dog Walking.” Given my appearance, I doubt anybody not in a street gang would have considered making me the family pet.
But for this to work – and for the next GM to last more than a year with his life – it’s essential you guys help dogs like me practice birth control. And don’t count my kind to practice any of your tricky human maneuvers. “Don’t worry, honey, I’ll know when … “
Get us fixed now! It’s cheap or free and, take it from me, it only hurts for a minute or two. If for no other reason, do it for the mayor. He’s got his hands full with the city’s financial crisis.
Thought I was going to make a smart-ass remark about his sex life, didn’t you?
EDITOR”S NOTE: Union leaders are angry and many of their members are angry at them. Community leaders on Neighborhood Councils are ready to go to war over the loss of their funding. And so are hundreds of other people who participate in city affairs and see the damage that the Mayor and City Council will cause with their panicked budget-slashing plan.
Christopher Robleto is one of those people who has given his time and energy to solve some of the city’s problems with the help of the small amount of money provided to the Los Angeles Youth Council. Here is his story:
By Christopher Robleto Chapter Coordinator, Northeast Division, Los Angeles Youth Council.
In the midst of budget deficits last year, the City Council voted and Mayor
Villaraigosa approved the consolidation of the following in order to
form the new Human Services Department (HSD). • Commission for Children, Youth, and Their Families • Commission on the Status of Women • Human Relations Commission
And
yet, not even a whole year later, the department is up on the chopping
block and facing possible elimination, with a decision to be made as
early as this month.
The HSD only operates on $2.1 million
per year which represents 0.1% of the city’s budget. This is a small
cost to pay when considering what the department does for the City of
Los Angeles on a budget that has already been slashed significantly.
Some things that the HSD does includes: • Proactively addressing tensions in the community and task forces before they erupt • Mitigating factors that cause poverty and disenfranchisement • Empowering youths to make a difference in their communities by housing the Los Angeles Youth Council • Engaging youths in the civic process and linking them to opportunities and resources • Promoting awareness of the problems that women in the City of Los Angeles face • Actively addressing the issue of children and school safety by training parents for the KidWatch Safety Valet Program •
Serving as the eyes and ears for city policymakers on various issues
including: Juvenile justice, LGBT concerns, education, homelessness,
housing, immigration, interfaith activities, LAPD and LAFD Instruction
and Curriculum Development, and more!
WE NEED YOUR HELP to tell
City Council and the Mayor that cutting the Human Services Department
is not a great idea. The department is an investment that will pay its
dividends on the back end. We gain from having this department in the
long run.
Apart
from that, isn’t it outrageous that the City contemplated using
taxpayers’ dollars for the Laker’s parade? Private donors ended up assuming a $900,000 chunk of the
total cost.
Not only that but City Attorney Carmen Trutanich says that he will not accept cuts to his department. Yet, click here to see where the money is going to…
So
much for “ask[ing] everyone to come together, pitch[ing] in and be[ing]
a small part of a bigger solution” and not “taking a meat cleaver to
essential services.”
I attended the State of the City Address last
year, and I had hope that things would change for the better. Now, I am
not all that sure.
The
Budget and Finance Committee Hearing on the new budget proposals will
be on Monday, February 1, 2010 at the Los Angeles City Hall at 1:00
p.m. We need your help.
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
I don’t know if Antonio Villaraigosa is a liar, or even a crook — though I’ve got my suspicions about some of his cronies.
But I do know he has a hard time taking responsibility for his actions, living up to his promises and facing the truth head-on. That’s why I put up his 2009 State of the City speech and highlighted the phrases that leap off the page to me, phrases that show he deflected all responsibility for the city’s financial condition, pandered politically to segments of the population and quoted a Japanese proverb (Adversity is the foundation of virtue) as if to give moral weight to his commitment to fix what he had broken.
He might better have had his speechwriter dig out the Zen koan: If you do the right thing for the wrong reason, or the wrong thing for the right reason, what if you die?
The right reason that the mayor outlined was his committment to take the drastic steps needed skillfully scale the city work force and spending down to a level in line with falling revenue.
The heart of his plan to deal with the fiscal crisis was that he was not going to “take a meat cleaver to essential services — threatening
meals for the poor, housing for the homeless, libraries for our
students, job assistance for the unemployed and police patrols in our
neighborhoods.“
Instead, he was going to surgically remove the “deadwood” as he told Times editors days later.
Of course, that isn’t what he — or the City Council — did.
He took a shotgun to the city work force and blew it to pieces with a sweetened retirement package that is getting rid of the talented and invaluable senior staff along with whatever “deadwood” has volunteered for it.
Huge gaps in managerial skill and experience are left in every department. There was nothing targeted about the ERIP, nothing strategic. It was open to just about anyone who wanted so a lot of the people who grabbed it could afford to retire with five extra years of service credit and $15,000 in cash to buy more.
Why would any capable person stay aboard a sinking ship if they didn’t have to?
And now he’s taking the mess he made of city government and grinding it into mush with 1,000 layoffs that will only buy a few months before the city can no longer pay its bills, time enough to sell off airports, golf courses, parking structures and meters, the zoo and Convention Center and buy a little more before the city has to file for bankruptcy. By then there will be nothing much of value left to sell, except maybe the DWP, LAX, the parks and vast open spaces like Chatsworth Reservoir.
Nine months after his State of the City speech, what he has done to make matters so much
worse, turned a crisis into a catastrophe.
He didn’t do
what he said he was going to do. He hasn’t even had the courage to speak to the public about the budget catastrophe in all that time, preferring to flit from photo op to photo op boosting achievements in small things while the city falls apart and dreams of a better tomorrow turn into a nightmarish vision of a city without hope.
There was nothing mysterious about the city’s worsening financial condition. Year after year, city bureaucrats warned of the deepening deficit.
As Walter Moore noted during his campaign for mayor, the City Administrative warned at least five times from 2005 to 2007 that the city was running more than $200 million in the red and needed to act prudently.
Instead of dealing with the problem, the mayor kept on hiring and hiring thousands of more city workers, kept on raisiing fees, taxes and rates and then spending more, most of it on poverty programs instead of basic services and infrastructure, kept on cutting sweetheart deals with unions, developers and contractors.
And now he wants to gut the Parks, Library, Planning, Neighborhood Empowerment, Building and Safety and other departments that do provide services citywide.
Even worse, he and the Council want to slam these cuts through without allowing any time for analysis or public debate.
They are seven months into this fiscal year and still have a $200 million deficit. They borrowed more than $1 billion to be able to pay their bills and don’t have enough cash to pay the bills, in no small part because only a few hundred of the ERIP volunteers have actually left their jobs and will still be in them for many months more.
Today, they are raiding dozens of special funds of millions of dollars because they are out of cash. Next week, they will start ordering layoffs without regard to the functioning of departments, layoffs of the youngest workers, just like the ERIP got rid of the oldest.
Nothing they have done or are doing has anything to do with running the city for the benefit of the public. They are chasing the numbers of falling revenue downhill without a plan. City unions are in an uproar after having been dragged to the bargaining table with a gun at their heads three times in less than a year. Their own positive ideas for reducing spending have been largely ignored, their members are as furious at their leadership as they are at city officials.
The activist community has awakened and begun to mobilize into a force to be reckoned with.
Council members, few with any experience beyond serving in government staff jobs before being elected to positions as the nation’s highest paid city elected officials, see the danger to themselves and are looking for whatever deceit and subterfuge will protect them from the wrath of the people.
They will do anything except face the truth and find the courage to lead the city out of the darkness.
There is no light at the end of this tunnel.
The only hope is that a new civic culture will arise out of the ashes of City Hall’s failure.
Somehow the unions must come to realize the commitments from city officials are worthless. Business leaders must see the city can’t deliver on promises to create thousands of jobs and revive the economy. And ordinary citizens must look beyond their grievances and their anger and seize the moment to find common ground with each other and with these other interests that are more powerful and better organized.
We cry out for a leader who can bring us together and save us from disaster. We thought Antonio Villaraigosa might that leader five years ago. We were wrong. He has betrayed our hopes and dreams.
Worst of all, he has betrayed himself — and for that there is no redemption.
EDITOR’S NOTE LA was already in serious financial trouble last April when the mayor delivered his State of City Speech. It’s nine months later and the situation is worse. You be the judge of whether he delivered on what he promised. The highlighted phrases will make it easier to judge.
STATE OF THE CITY SPEECH BY MAYOR ANTONIO VILLARAIGOSA, APRIL 14, 2009
Fellow Angelenos:
These are no ordinary times in the City of Los Angeles, or for that matter, any place where people depend on the global economy..
Here in L.A., the recession is taking a terrible toll. 230,000
Angelenos now standing on unemployment lines. The jobless rate
simmering at 12% and rising. The mortgage crisis has now forced 21,000
of our families to box up their belongings and vacate their homes, many
experiencing for the first time in their lives the humiliating pain —
the frustration — that comes in having to put your hand out and rely
on the help of strangers to survive.
We have thousands of business owners struggling to make payroll.
Trade flows and ship traffic are idling at the port. And the recession
has done lasting damage to one of our most vital civic institutions: our great newspapers.
Needless to say, the recession has hit government particularly hard.
The need for our services is up. Revenue to pay for them is down.
Here in L.A., we face a $530-million deficit this year alone.
The situation at the state level — where the system seems hardwired
for failure — is even more extreme. That’s why it is absolutely
critical that we lock arms and approve the bipartisan budget
stabilization package on May 19 to prevent us from destroying the very
services that Californians depend on.
When challenges seem daunting, it’s always helpful to recall the old Japanese proverb: “Adversity is the foundation of virtue.”
If this global economic crisis was brought on by the recklessness
and greed of the few, pulling ourselves out of the ditch is going to
require the shared sacrifice of the many. It’s going to take a bold
reassertion of our belief in community as a value – here in L.A. and
across America.
First off, we are going to need to support President Obama with everything we’ve got.
And we must all demonstrate a new willingness to roll up our sleeves and sacrifice for the common good.
Most of all, we are going to need to constantly remind ourselves of the philosophy that created the crisis in the first place.
For the last half-century, many have argued that our public
institutions are the enemy. An anti-government philosophy incubated in
Washington think tanks. A philosophy that says sensible financial
regulation is bad for the economy. That progressive taxation equals
class warfare.
They spread the fiction that frayed the fabric — arguing that the
social safety net traps people in poverty. And they offered perhaps
history’s worst-ever financial advice: “Just do what Wall Street says
and, trust us, the dividends will trickle down to your 401(k)s.”
Here in California, it’s the same thinking that gave us the two-thirds budget vote and term limits.
Fundamentally it’s the politics of no. Of saying what we can’t do. No
to investment in the long term. No to what we can do together as
parents and neighbors in communities, small towns and big cities across
our state.
Today, our path forward must focus on revitalizing our economy,
rejuvenating our middle class and helping our hard-working families
weather this storm and emerge stronger on the other side.
And in practically every decision we make, we are going to need to rebuild this economy on a foundation of shared values.
If that sounds abstract, I’ll be a little more specific. Next week,
I will present our budget proposal to the City Council. It’s founded
on two fundamental principles: protecting services and preserving the
jobs people need in this recession.
I’ll be the first to admit: This budget relies on the willing
partnership of our city workers, hopefully even the courageous
leadership of their union leaders.
This year’s $530-million shortfall could grow to a billion dollars
in 2010 because of the market damage to our pension funds. This is not
a reason to panic. This is a reason for urgency. A reason to come to
the table with new ideas. To recognize that there is no time to
waste. There is not a single moment to spare.
And we have to act now.
To my fellow city workers: We face a stark — but clear — choice. We can reopen contracts and together write a jobs budget or we can stay
stuck on autopilot, on a path to a layoff budget.
We can do what some cities and states are proposing. Despite the
deepening chill of this recession, we can turn out thousands of our
workers and take a meat cleaver to essential services – threatening
meals for the poor, housing for the homeless, libraries for our
students, job assistance for the unemployed and police patrols in our
neighborhoods.
Or we can ask everyone to come together, pitch in and be a small part of a bigger solution.
In recent weeks, I have reached out to the leadership of all of the
city unions with an offer of partnership. I have asked them to join me
in forging a budget that prevents layoffs and protects vital services.
The alternative is too painful to contemplate. If we are unable to
negotiate some flexibility in this emergency, we could be forced to lay
off more than 2,800 city workers.
And together with the council, I am committed to a budget that preserves jobs and protects the social safety net.
Here are examples of some modest sacrifices we all can make:
If every city worker – beginning with me – takes off just one unpaid hour per week, we will prevent more than 500 layoffs.
If we each contribute just 2% more to our health and pension benefits, we will prevent another 700 layoffs.
By simply deferring automatic pay raises, we will save as many as 1,300 jobs.
And I will make our city workers this iron-clad commitment: We will
work immediately to repair the damage this economic storm has inflicted
on our pension systems. Working with the City Council, I intend to
explore a series of responsible public-private partnerships and advertising opportunities with the potential to generate more than $1
billion over the next several years. Money that we can put in a lock
box to help shore up your retirement security and address other
critical city priorities long into the future.
I know these options aren’t easy. But there are thousands of jobs
at stake. Thousands of families looking to us to do the right thing.
And it’s up to all of us to see the bigger picture, to take action to
protect jobs, save pensions and preserve vital services when our
families need them most.
Now, more than ever, we need to focus our city efforts on promoting
economic recovery. Our office is pursuing an aggressive multi-pronged
strategy.
It begins with training people for the jobs of tomorrow. I’m
pleased to say that over the last four years we’ve laid a foundation
for economic growth and progress in our workforce development strategy.
We’ve invested millions of additional dollars each year in summer youth jobs programs.
Working with nonprofits, the Chamber of Commerce and local
businesses, we’re getting thousands of young people onto the economic
ladder, in reach of good jobs and secure employment.
And I am proud to announce today that this city and its partners
have a strategy in place to put 16,500 young people to work – placing
more students in good jobs than at any time in the last 15 years.
We know that career training starts with our community colleges. That’s
why from Trade-Tech to the Harbor, these campuses will soon be home to
our WorkSource Centers connecting students to jobs and education to job
placement.
We now have $1 billion in Prop. J funds to build satellite campuses
focused on job training, to retrofit community college buildings, to
power campuses with renewable energy and to train students to build and
install solar panels.
And with a federal stimulus package hitting our streets and a
president ready to invest in our urban areas again, I believe the City
of L.A. will once again have the resources to put thousands of our
young people to work, off the streets and out of trouble.
Second, we are using this crisis to confront the need to reinvent
the way this city provides services to our poor: by refocusing our
efforts on programs that work; and reviewing each investment to make
sure that it meets the highest standards of transparency and
accountability.
We are going to better connect help to the people who need it by
creating 21 Family Source Centers located in our hardest-hit
neighborhoods. Where people will be able to seek assistance for
themselves and their families, file for critical tax credits, access
affordable medical care, and benefit from programs at every level of
government – and all on a single form. Each year, this program will
serve at least 50,000 people.
And in the coming months, we will roll out a $30-million program to
provide rental assistance and supportive services to 4,000 of our
lowest-income families – the households hardest hit by this crisis.
With this strategy in place, we are sending the message that we will not leave our neighbors behind no matter what the cost.
Third, here in Los Angeles, we know that our ultimate prosperity is
going to be determined on the laptops of small-business owners. From
Van Nuys to Venice, from Brentwood to Boyle Heights, these
entrepreneurs are the true engines of our recovery. They represent the
backbone and the building blocks of new industries and new markets.
And in Los Angeles, we are working to attract, retain and offer
assistance to small businesses at every turn. After a record-setting
first term in new development. After bringing $17 billion of new
construction into L.A. and creating 140,000 well-paying jobs in the
process. It is now time to change our tune and focus our time,
resources and energy on our city’s start-ups and smaller enterprises.
And it’s time to take our game to a higher level.
In the next year, our Business Team will assist over 1,000 local,
small businesses throughout our city. In the coming months, we will
build on the success of our Minority Business Opportunity Center to
create a broader “Office of Small, Local, and Disadvantaged Business,”
whose sole purpose is to use federal funds to help businesses succeed
across L.A. Businesses that employ local workers and recycle dollars
back into local communities.
Last month, I approved a $15-million loan fund to increase credit
opportunities for small businesses. And starting on July 1, we will
direct the Community Development Department to make an additional $15
million available to loan out to business owners, to help them
reinforce their bottom line and allow them to continue providing
essential jobs, products and services to our residents.
Fourth, we are aggressively growing the industries of the future here in L.A. We need to build a future in which clean technology
is as synonymous with Los Angeles as motion pictures or aerospace.
Where L.A. is acknowledged as a growing capital of the green economy.
With our Solar L.A. plan, we’re working to cut our carbon footprint
and to transform L.A. into a clean energy powerhouse. With the
nation’s most far-reaching green building ordinance, we believe we can
create America’s most vibrant job site in sustainable construction.
And at the Port of Los Angeles, I’m proud to say tonight that we’ve sent 2,000 dirty diesel trucks to the junk yard and replaced them with
vehicles that run on natural gas and electricity.
I believe L.A.’s economic future starts right here, in places like
Balqon, where the next generation of electric trucks are being
designed, tested and manufactured; where we are literally revving up
the engines of our Clean Truck Program; where the wheels of a clean,
green port are turning; and a new high-tech venture is producing clean
fuel vehicles IN L.A., for the betterment of LA.
This facility will serve as the model for our Harbor Clean Tech
Center; for investments in the latest vessels for green development;
for the San Pedro Bay Port Technology Development Center — home of
green companies serving our port.
A few miles up the 110, we are building a literal “Clean-Tech
Corridor.” A business corridor bringing together researchers,
designers and manufacturers from around the world dedicated to
sustainable solutions and to creating green-collar jobs.
Located just outside of downtown, this corridor will house our Clean
Tech Manufacturing Center, a catalyst for smart growth that could
create as many as 1,000 high-paying jobs.
It will host our Clean Innovations Research Center, where the
world’s leading experts will come together to define future renewable
energy sources, water conservation strategies and green building
advances.
The Clean Tech Corridor will rest alongside the Cornfields Arroyo
Seco – the first and only LEED-pilot neighborhood by any big city in
the United States of America. A cluster of pedestrian-friendly streets
sitting along public transit lines. A model for future communities
where residents walk more, drive less and have access to quality jobs
and affordable housing.
This is a unique moment of opportunity. It’s an opportunity to
stand at the forefront of the clean-tech revolution; to transform our
old industrial core into ground zero for green jobs and sustainability.
And if we follow this path, we can turn a new page toward a green
tomorrow. Write a defining chapter in L.A.’s economic future and start
a new book where environmental progress and economic growth go hand in
hand.
In the end, we know that responding to our current crisis requires
that we forsake short-term politics for long-term investments.
We can’t lose sight of our core values – recognizing that the
long-term building blocks of economic growth and vitality in Los
Angeles have always been public safety, public education and public
transportation. We know that safety is the fundamental precondition to
prosperity. And we’ve made tremendous progress over the past few years.
The numbers speak for themselves: crime at historic lows; our
police force at historic highs; homicides down to levels unseen in
almost four decades; and a new citywide gang prevention and
intervention strategy already proving itself on our streets.
Our budget will protect police and fire, keep our commitment to put
1,000 cops on the street and continue to attack the root causes of gangs and youth violence.
I respect the critics who say we can’t afford it, but frankly, they
have it backwards; we can’t afford not to. We cannot break the compact
we made with the public on police hiring. An investment that grows
only more urgent in a struggling economy.
This is why our budget also expands our investment in gang prevention. On April 1, with the close of the Bridges program, we changed the math. We
ended the old divide-by-15 calculus that has historically governed
anti-gang and other spending. I am proud to say that today every new
gang reduction dollar we spend in L.A. is being focused for maximum
impact in neighborhoods of need.
Jeff Carr, our citywide anti-gang leader, is creating innovative new
tools to identify and serve youth most at risk of joining gangs. This
year we will expand our successful Summer Night Lights program from
eight to 15 parks. And in the coming months, we will be developing a
joint initiative with the county to break the cycle leading from
juvenile detention to a lifetime of trouble with the law.
We know our long-term prosperity depends on improving our
infrastructure. With the passage of Measure R, I’m proud to say that
Los Angeles is in the business of building again.
Some people didn’t think we had a chance, not with the two-thirds requirement, not just weeks after the meltdown on Wall Street.
But Angelenos didn’t buy the politics of no. They said yes. Yes to
a $40-billion investment in new transit, rail and highways. Yes to a
Subway to the Sea. Yes to a funding stream that will create some
210,000 jobs and will give Los Angeles the world-class,
state-of-the-art public transportation system it deserves.
Finally, the effort to bring reform to L.A.’s schools has never been
more urgent. In less than one academic year, our Partnership schools
are becoming models of efficiency, accountability and transparency. We
cleaned up the campuses and made them safer. The teachers and students
are getting more support. Parents have been empowered to get involved
and take the reins of leadership on their children’s campus.
At Locke High School – where just 3 out of every 100 students go to
college – Green Dot has broken down the barriers to reform and created eight
small college prep schools – taking their success in charters citywide
and applying it to a campus once considered a lost cause.
On the Eastside, the Alliance has partnered with Cal State L.A. to
build a school focused exclusively on math, science, technology and
engineering, equipping students with the skills to thrive in the 21st
century.
These are just some of the things that are happening because we raised our voice and said it is time for fundamental reform.
We can no longer afford to tinker around the edges. I am committed
to leading the charge for reform until every last child in Los Angeles
has the chance to succeed.
With Ray Cortines at the helm, the LAUSD now has a leader with the
vision, commitment and nerve to step up to the chalkboard and answer
the toughest questions.
But he cannot do it alone. We are helping Ray recruit a team of
change agents to help lead the district – Change Agents NOT
bureaucrats; innovators who will demand high expectations for students
and will stop at nothing to make that happen.
I am committed to raising private funds to hire this reform team.
And tonight, I’m announcing that we have already secured more than $4
million over the next three years to put this team in place.
Here in Los Angeles, we are blessed with some of the
highest-performing charter schools in the country – schools run by
experienced educators; by individuals who know how to open new campuses
and transform old ones; by men and women who understand the problems we
face and have the expertise to solve them.
These organizations must not get shut out of the conversation simply
because they upset the status quo. Every new school we build must be a
reform campus — committed to measurable outcomes and results.
Charters must be able to partner with the district, propose their
ideas, offer their input and play a central role in the wider effort
for reform.
And when our lowest-performing schools fail, when campuses reach the
point of no return, when it becomes crystal clear that wholesale change
is the only answer, we must close them down. Close them down and turn
them over to charter operators, the Partnership or local universities. Because we know that a strong education is our kids’ best shot at a better life.
I believe we have the opportunity in the coming weeks and months to
once again define what we’re all about in the City of the Angels. We
can enact a city budget that reaffirms our values by sharing
responsibility and the sacrifice that comes with it. We can prevent
unnecessary job losses. We can step up to help our neighbors. We can
make our communities even safer. We can provide every kid an education
that gives them a real shot. We can define the boundaries of the 21st
century economy here within our own city limits. We can, and we will,
beat this recession.
We will do it if we remember the journey of three centuries. If we
reawaken our senses to the basic idea that has always made Los Angeles
the destination of dreamers everywhere.
It’s the spirit that transformed a dusty pueblo into a global
metropolis. It is the spirit that impelled my grandfather – and
countless others like him – to come here for a better life. It’s the
spirit that imagined an infrastructure worthy of a nation-state. It is
the central thread. It’s the meaning behind the Hollywood sign. It explains the life of Tom Bradley.
And across Los Angeles today at this very moment in kitchens and in
dockyards, in classrooms, offices and union halls, translated in more
languages and into more personal stories than we could ever possibly
chronicle or count.
It is the understanding that the future is not a self-fulfilling
prophecy. The future is a matter of what we are willing to say yes to.
It’s the belief in a better day, the faith that together, with hard
work, sacrifice and, yes, a little bit of luck, we can do anything – we
can be anything – in the City of the Angels.
Jack Weiss, the ex-Councilman drummed out of office for doing such a poor job, and former Deputy LAPD Chief Michael Berkow, drummed out of town for his philandering ways, have landed top jobs running the Los Angeles offices of former Chief Bill Bratton’s new global security firm.
Good ol’ Bill Bratton, he knows how to look after his boys.
The Times has the press realease, uh story. “I got to see Jack in a role in which he was very supportive of the goals of the department. He drove the DNA issue. He knows how to dig down, get information, get results,” Bratton said.
“Jack has a very big Rolodex and, let’s face it, I need somebody who can get out of the gate very quickly, get through the door and show people what ARI can do.”
Weiss, who faced a recall effort in his CD5 seat and lost the City Attorney’s race, was equally effusive, about running the LA office of Altegrity Risk International, the firm Bratton heads that opens for business on Monday. Berkow, who was brought into the LAPD to handle internal affairs, got into trouible with affairs of his own after he threw a mattress into his office and took up residency where he worked. t cost the city $1 million to settle one female officer’s lawsuit. Berkow quit as chief in Savannah, Ga., shortly before Bratton announced he was leaving the LAPD.
He will be based in Los Angeles and head Altegrity
Security Consulting, another firm formed by the merger of two large security firms.
The parent company is run by Michael Cherkasky, who was head of the Kroll Group which was one of the merger companies and was the federal court monitor for the LAPD.
LA’s new job czar Austin Beutner sat down with LA’s old column czar Steve Lopez of the Dog Trainer recently to reveal how he was going to reverse the city’s downward economic spiral with all the talents at the disposal of a billionaire willing to work for $1 a year. Unless all of us are willing to work for $1 a year, I wouldn’t get your hopes up.
Lopez said the idea to hire Beautner sprang from a meeting of Dick Riordan, Eli Broad, Michael Milken and Steve Soboroff, or what you could call the “Been There, Tried That Gang.”
Remember, it was not that long ago that at least two of these guys, Riordan and Soboroff, actually ran Los Angeles (Broad runs the world and Milken, well, that’s a whole other story), and if you haven’t figured it out yet from reading my master’s blog, our troubles didn’t start yesterday.
At its core, and without going into the entertaining but sometime stultifying detail supplied by my master, the city’s problems stem from its contracts with public employees.
That’s a problem for our elected city officials – who, by the way, make more than $1 a year — since their campaigns receive huge contributions from labor unions, many of which represent our pubic “servants.”
“He’s going to have to confront many, many special interest groups who have controlled the mayor of the city and council of the city — developers, unions, you name it,” Riordan told Lopez. “And I think it is a smart move on the mayor’s part to let somebody who does not have political aspirations make the tough moves.”
Then Lopez – who makes way more than $1 a year — added his two cents:
“You could call it politically smart, sure, the mayor standing clear of the dirty work he wants done, including likely confrontations with city employee unions that have bankrolled his campaigns in the past.
“Or you could ask yourself why he didn’t step up himself, long ago.”
Ask yourself? Jeez, why doesn’t somebody from the Dog Trainer ask him? Oh, that’s right, it did have a long profile of the mayor recently. Unfortunately, it concentrated on the mayor’s diet – meatless Mondays – his new yoga regimen, his girlfriend and her dog, Monkey.
Riordan and Soboroff obviously didn’t brief Beutner on the stuff they tried – mostly dealing with the port and airport – that didn’t work. He’s going to try it all again.
The job czar did tell Lopez he had a great idea to lure a Chinese car manufacturing plant to LA.
“Beutner might promise that he’ll get Villaraigosa and an A-list celebrity to show up at the Academy Awards presentation in the company’s electric cars, a great promo for all the world to see.”
And maybe the mayor can bring his girlfriend and her four-legged pal Monkey.
I’ve got a better idea. Ron recently started to “retrain” me, as if I was ever trained in the first place. It involves lots of new commands, increased discipline – and an electric collar that looks like it was designed by a dog-hating sadist.
Maybe the next time the Been There, Tried That Gang get together at one of their mansions, probably after Beutner realizes as a $1-a-year volunteer he won’t get anything done and quits, they consider a similar regimen for our mayor, in addition to the meatless Mondays and yoga, of course.
If you want to know why people have lost confidence in City Hall, here’s one of the reasons: Outrageous misconduct by city employees and officials that cost taxpayers millions of dollars with little or no accountability for those responsible.
Take the case of Fire Captain Frank Lima and the $4.8 million he was paid Aug. 12 in a reverse discrimination case. Lima had the audacity to treat a female recruit the same as a male one and flunked her when she couldn’t navigate a training exercise involving a 35-foot ladder. His reward: Reassignment and denial of a promotion. A jury awarded him $3.75 million 30 months ago but interest and attorney fees added to the final tally.
Or take the case of LAPD Officer Donald Bender who was stripped of rank and pulled out of the canine unit at LAX because he had the temerity to try to stop the unit’s only female officer, Patricia Fuller, from lewd jokes and innuendoes and exclusion from training sessions. He was paid $1.5 million this fiscal year with $1 million more due next year. She got $1.25 million last year and $1 million this year.
Firefighter Lewis “Steve” Bressler, in a similar case, got $3.3 million – twice what the jury awarded him because of interest and attorney fees. He suffered retaliation because tried to help a colleague suffering racial, sexual and sexual orientation discrimination.
There are a lot of other cases listed in City Attorney Carmen Trutanich’s report on liability costs that is being reviewed by the Council today, cases like $130,000 to Mary Cummins-Cobb for wrongful termination and $175,000 to Joseph Ward-Wallace for discrimination in the Fire Department, where workplace abuse has been common for decades.
Abuse of citizens has long been equally common in the Police Department where the estate of David Medina, who died after police used excessive force on him, was paid $450,000 over the last two years and Angelo Gousse – beaten, kicked, tightly handcuffs, called racial epithets and falsely arrested – is being paid $3 million this year and next.
I could go on and on with cases like the nearly $500,000 deposited with the courts because of judgments for gadflies and Venice boardwalk entertainers Michael Hunt and Matt Dowd for violations of their rights, the Council’s illegal “density bonus” ordinance and other violations of the law.
What’s missing from the report is what disciplinary actions and managerial reforms were carried out over these abuses that have led to $26.1 million in payouts in the first three months of the fiscal year alone.
All the Council cares about these days is money so they’ve got there eyes on the $16 million still left in the budget for liability lawsuits. So for a change they are on Trutanich’s side, hoping he continues to play hard ball in negotiating settlements and winning cases in court.
The Council also is getting around to taking a look at the City Treasurer’s six-week-old report that showed revenue from investments was coming up $20 million short — not that another $20 million or so here and there is going to make much of a dent when you’re running as deep in the red as the city is.
It’s going to take a massive amount of pressure from the community to scare the political life out of the Mayor and Council and give them the courage to actually face the fact that have failed miserably in their jobs, have their priorities all screwed up, pay too much for everything as if the people’s money was just so much play dough.
By Charley Mims SEIU Local 347 Trustee, City Chief Construction Inspector, Griffith Park NC leader (Originally posted today in comments)
There is so much misunderstanding and so much misleading and false information listed in the Blog article and in the mostly anonymous postings, that I hardly know where to begin! Let’s start with a little history. Four and a half years ago the City of Los Angeles had 26 thousand plus employees. At the height of employment in 2009 the City had 30 thousand employees.
These people were hired by the Mayor and the City Council. If they had not hired 4 thousand employees, we would not be having this conversation now and the City budget would be
balanced.
This is not a financial crisis. It is a leadership crisis.
As a City employee, a union leader, a community activist, and having served on the City’s retirement commission and on the Charter Reform Commission, I have personal knowledge of City operations and finances.
We do not have a “pension” crisis.
In 2000 when I was on the retirement commission it was fully funded and the City was having a pension funding “holiday.”
The “normal” cost for the City’s share of funding the retirement system
is about 13% of payroll. The employees contribute an additional 6% of
payroll.
In 2000 the City contributed less than 5% of payroll due to the system
being fully funded at that time. Had the City continued to merely fund
at their actuarially determined “normal” cost, we would be in much
better shape today.
One reason we have pension systems is that when you hire money managers
to invest 200 million dollars you can reduce money management costs to
a very low amount in comparison with an individual hiring a money
manager to manage their 50 or 100 thousand dollars of investments for
retirement.
The investment risk is also lowered considerably. while pension funds
have lost 20 to 40 percent of their value during this depression,
individuals as a whole have done a lot worse.
Controlling risk and minimizing management costs matter to society
unless you are an investment manager in the private sector. Drexel
Burnham, Merrill Lynch and others charge much more to manage your
investments–oh! wait, they went bankrupt and were either disolved or
taken over by a bank “too big to fail.”
What should have been done a year ago, or two years ago, or five years ago, is finally going to happen today at City Hall — and all of it behind closed doors. Public excluded.
First, the Mayor and City Council members on the Executive Employee Relations Committee will meet to discuss reopening employee contracts in the face of bankruptcy unless drastic measures are taken.
Then, the full City Council will go into closed session to take up the same issue followed by the Mayor meeting in private with department heads to tell them to fire 1,000 or more worker bees, the youngest and lowest-paid city workers with less than five years of city service.
Afterward, you can be sure you’ll hear how all those officials are victims of the economic downturn and doing their darndest best to avoid bankruptcy for the city and provide the same great service to you, their wonderful constituents they always have.
They are lying. They have failed in their sworn duties and have never done anything that isn’t for their own advantage or the advantage of the special interests who put them into office.
Here’s my take last night on NBC’s “The Filter with Fred Roggin” which is being re-broadcast at 11:30 a.m. this morning on Channel 4:
The word is leaking out of City Hall from all directions: Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa is moving swiftly to get rid of 1,000 or more of the youngest and lowest-paid city workers without a strategic plan to preserve services or get rid of the people he once called “deadwood.”
The mayor, who increasingly is showing signs of panic in the face of the budget crisis, has called department heads to a meeting Tuesday afternoon with the goal of making it clear that the target of his layoff plan are those with less than five years employment with the city.
He also is asking for a list of what public services they recommend eliminating and has drawn a line against cuts in police. It’s unlikely he will hit the Fire Department given LA’s propensity for natural disasters.
Those public safety departments account for half of all general fund spending.so the impact on other city departments, already are losing 2,763 workers to the Early Retirement Incentive Program, will be enormous.
Although the question of layoffs was raised nearly a year ago, there has been no strategic planning on how to minimize the impact on important services to the public. In fact, the City Council has repeatedly emphasized protecting functions that generate revenue instead of those that provide general public services.
The ERIP itself has been a disaster for many departments with key senior managers deciding to retire with $15,000 in cash and pensions sweetened with five years extra service credit, enhancing pensions by about 12 percent.
Those retirements have left gaping holes in the ability of some departments to operate and the random elimination of those at the bottom who actually do much of the work will compound the chaos and further degrade city services.
Union leaders are set to meet Friday with top officials and appear to be ready to fight even as many of their rank-and-file members are challenging the decisions they made on ERIP and new contracts that contained hollow promises of no layoffs and deferred pay raises.
The business community and Neighborhood Council leaders have stressed that pension reform is the critical issue since the burden of a $10.5 billion unfunded pension liability is draining the general fund and pushing the city toward bankruptcy.
