Author: William Nottingham

In an emerging, high-stakes battle fueled by government budget woes, a Long Beach lawmaker is attempting to stop cities from launching what she calls “a raid” on state coffers by collecting and keeping traffic fines.

With some tickets now costing more than $500 — and the bulk of the money going to the state and the courts — a small but growing number of California municipalities have begun issuing traffic citations under their own laws, rather than the state vehicle code.

Some local officials see it as a winning tactic that allows them to reduce penalties for the public while boosting cash flows because their agencies keep all of the money.

Los Angeles City Councilman Dennis Zine this week called for the state’s largest city to pursue such a program for red light tickets and possibly other moving violations.

Tens of thousands of red light tickets are issued annually in Los Angeles via photo enforcement systems. Those fines could be cut in half, to $250 or less under his plan, Zine said. And the city, which is grappling with a $212-million budget shortfall, the prospect of layoffs and potentially significant service cuts, could collect millions in new revenue. The city would process tickets itself, outside of traditional traffic court, and net $50 to $100 more per citation.

But Democratic State Sen. Jenny Oropeza (D-Long Beach) is moving to halt the practice before it spreads. Under a bill she introduced earlier this month, cities would be prohibited from setting up their own traffic ticket fine schedules and collection systems.

Allowing a patchwork of enforcement practices would be “confusing, unfair and robs the state of legitimate income,” said Oropeza, a member of the Senate Transportation and Housing Committee. “I view it as a raid on state resources that are for transportation.”

Issuing different kinds of tickets for the same violation, with different fines, is “moving toward a situation of chaos,” she said.

At least one Northern California town, Roseville, has been issuing traffic tickets under city codes for about a year. Officials told the Sacramento Bee that for certain violations, such as failing to obey traffic signs, police have the option of issuing city citations or state code violations. More serious speeding or red light violations are not issued under local codes.

The city fine is $100, or about one third the penalty for the same violation cited under state law. Also, tickets issued under the aegis of the city are not reported to the state Department of Motor Vehicles — or indirectly the driver’s insurance company.

That’s a major problem, Oropeza said. Uniform enforcement of the state vehicle code and keeping track of all moving violations is critical to identifying unsafe drivers, she said.

Among cities issuing traffic tickets under their own laws are Long Beach, Riverbank near Modesto and a few in the East Bay area, according to a spokesperson for Oropeza.

The potential financial losses to the state and courts aren’t yet clear, said Philip Carrizosa, spokesman for the agency that oversees administration of the state judiciary, which normally processes traffic tickets.

Some penalties have increased sharply in recent years and the revenue stream is becoming increasingly attractive to elected officials struggling with huge budget deficits.

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger recently estimated the state could raise $338 million if cameras were used to catch highway speeders.

From Los Angeles County, the state and courts are reaping tens of millions of dollars a year, just from red-light camera tickets, government records show.

Zine, a former Los Angeles Police Department traffic cop, said Los Angeles would report any moving violations to the state under his plan.

And cities should be able to set and collect traffic fines as they deem appropriate, he said, especially when they are providing the police and equipment to enforce laws and issue violations.

“We do all the work and they take the money. It’s absurd,” he said. And fines should reflect a community’s economic conditions, he added.

“Why should someone who’s receiving financial assistance pay these $500 tickets, when they can’t even pay the rent and put food on the table?”

Zine disputed the suggestion Los Angeles and other cities would be raiding the state treasury. For years, state officials have been grabbing local government funds to balance their budgets, he said. “The state has ripped off every dollar they can” from cities.

Next week, he said he will ask the Council to oppose Oropeza’s bill and begin trying to rally the state’s various city associations to fight her legislation.

— Rich Connell

Photo: State Sen. Jenny Oropeza (D-Long Beach) at a candidate forum in 2007. Credit: Lori Shepler, Los Angeles Times.

Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa said Thursday he is planning a second major wave of City Hall job cuts, moving to eliminate between 1,200 and 2,000 positions to get the struggling city through the remainder of the calendar year.



Appearing at a luncheon hosted by the Los Angeles Area Chamber of Commerce, Villaraigosa said the reductions would be sought for the fiscal year that starts July 1 — and come on top of the 1,000 jobs that he targeted last week for elimination.

Villaraigosa said the cuts would lead, at a minimum, to reduced library hours and parks and recreation programs. And he dismissed suggestions that he lacks the legal authority to slash the size of the city’s payroll.

“I can order layoffs, and I am,” he told the audience.



The mayor and City Council have been struggling to find ways to eliminate a $212-million shortfall this year and a $484-million gap in the fiscal year that starts in five months.

Councilman Richard Alarcon responded to the announcement by warning that such reductions would lead to a “dramatic” loss of city services. He also signaled that such a large cut to the civilian payroll would prompt calls to halt hiring of officers at the Police Department — an idea that Villaraigosa has so far refused to embrace.



“I don’t think you can have that discussion without talking about equitable cuts in the Police Department,” Alarcon said.



Villaraigosa announced last week that he would seek to scale back the workforce by 1,000 positions, either through layoffs or by transferring workers to vacant positions not affected by the budget crisis. In his remarks Thursday afternoon, Villaraigosa said he expected that at least one-fourth of those positions would be eliminated through layoffs.



Leaders of the city’s employee unions voiced their own dismay about the mayor’s announcement, saying he had proposed a number with “little to no analysis.”



“Each and every cut represents a loss of services,” said Victor Gordo, an attorney and a leader of the Coalition of L.A. City Unions, which represents 22,000 workers. “The council is engaged in a balanced and thoughtful approach to this fiscal crisis. We would urge [the mayor’s office] to do the same.”



— David Zahniser and Phil Willon at Los Angeles City Hall

 

Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa on Tuesday made a rare address to the City Council to urge quick action on proposals to lay off workers and cut departments, warning any delay could force the city into a “financial tailspin.”



The mayor, greeted by boos from the audience of mostly city workers, said layoffs this year and next are unavoidable. He dismissed arguments from some council members that the city’s $212-million deficit — and a $485-million shortfall forecast for 2010-11 — could be addressed without sending out pink slips.

“There just aren’t unlimited options here,” Villaraigosa told the council. “I have profound respect for the difficulty of the decisions you have to make, but I want to say this. We can’t continue to say no to everything. We can’t say no to layoffs, no to furloughs, no to department eliminations. … The fact is we can’t sustain this business model.”

Villaraigosa acknowledged that if the city became insolvent — unable to pay its bills — he could be held personally liable.

The mayor fielded polite questions from council members for close to two hours, just days after publicly expressing frustration about the council’s inability, during budget hearings last week, to take quick action to shave the city’s shortfall, including his call to eliminate 1,000 city jobs.



Earlier in the hearing, Council President Eric Garcetti defended its actions, saying it “didn’t slow down one day on the layoffs.” Last week, the council unanimously approved a motion instructing “that no layoffs of city personnel take place in the next 30 days,” although members directed the city personnel agency to identify 1,000 positions that could be eliminated.


But Villaraigosa and Garcetti tried to downplay any conflict between them, both taking shots at media reports for prompting criticism and creating a perception of disunity.



During his address to the council, Villaraigosa also pushed for the city to tap into hundreds of millions of dollars that could be raised by privatizing the city’s parking garages and meters, as well as the Los Angeles Zoo and convention center.



“Time is not our friend,” the mayor said. “Every day we wait to make the tough choices will only make the choices ahead even tougher.”

 

The mayor’s and the city council’s fitful efforts to tame the budget deficit are being watched closely by the finance industry, which the city depends on for short-term loans that maintain its cash flow. Representatives from two credit rating agencies expressed concern Monday about Los Angeles’ precarious financial position, noting the council’s indecision on budget cuts last week.



City Administrative Officer Miguel Santana said a representative from Fitch Ratings told his office that, based on media coverage, L.A. elected officials “can’t seem to step up and make decisions. So if it can’t be done now, then when?”



Last November, Fitch downgraded the city’s credit rating on $2.94 billion in debt — a move that drove up interest rates and made it more expensive for the city to borrow money. Moody’s Investors Service, another bond rating agency, on Monday also “expressed concerns” about the city’s inability to balance the budget, Santana said.



On Thursday, Villaraigosa said he would order department heads to start the layoff process immediately, excluding police officers, and to start notifying workers likely to be targeted once other employees are shifted to vacant positions not paid from the city’s general fund.



In a letter sent earlier this week to the city’s public employee unions, Santana named the 1,000 positions he believes could be eliminated. That list identified 48 tree surgeons and four senior gardeners in the Bureau of Street Services, who are responsible for trimming the city’s street trees. It also included 89 workers in child-care centers operated by the Department of Recreation and Parks.

“This council has made it clear that layoffs can only be considered as a final option,” Santana said while appearing before the group Tuesday morning. “We are at a point where we have no other options. … There’s no pot of gold out there that we haven’t tapped into.”

— Phil Willon and Maeve Reston at Los Angeles City Hall

Photo: Mayor Antonio Villariagosa speaks to the City Council Tuesday on proposals to lay off workers and cut departments. Credit: Anne Cusack  / Los Angeles Times

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Rain intensifies as storm moves toward burn areas

Although a layer of muck had flowed into his garage and around his home, La Cañada Flintridge resident Mike Thomassian, 62, on Sunday counted himself lucky. The interior of his house had been spared from the rain-induced mud that flooded his neighborhood.

But nine homes in the foothill area suffered enough damage to be red-tagged, which means they’re partially collapsed and uninhabitable.

With crumbling walls, sunken roofs, shattered windows and mud-filled living rooms, the structures are in a precarious position with more rain forecast for Tuesday evening.

Although weather specialists expect only a couple of inches of rainfall, L.A. County Department of Public Works spokesman Bob Spencer said residents needed to stay on heightened alert.

“There’s always a worry when we don’t have time to clean the debris basins out,” Spencer said.

Since last month’s storm — which cost the county about $20 million — Spencer said 300 dump trucks have operated around the clock to empty the debris basins. Those loads are dumped into three sediment basins in the foothills. The county is in the midst of getting a permit for a fourth sediment basin, and officials asked Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger on Sunday morning to expedite the approval process, which can take years.

“It’s needed badly in the near future based on the amount of sediment and debris that’s coming out of the forest,” Spencer said.

“We’re trying to calculate how much room we have left in the three sediment areas we’re using. If the debris keeps coming out at the rate that it is, we need a fourth one very quickly.”

— Corina Knoll and Ruben Vives

As hundreds of workers prepared to deploy Sunday to empty catch basins once again filled with mud and debris, all evacuation orders were lifted for residents of Southern California’s foothills.

L.A. County Sheriff’s Department spokeswoman Nicole Nishida said the evacuation orders had been lifted,  including for Paradise Valley in La Cañada Flintridge.

Catch basins in the foothills had only recently been emptied after the
weeklong storm that hit Southern California last month when Saturday
morning’s torrent of rain filled them again. Bob Spencer, L.A. County Department of Public Works spokesman, said about 1,000 of the department’s employees were expected to be deployed
Sunday across the county and would use bulldozers, plows, dump trucks
and cranes to sweep neighborhood streets and attempt to clear out
inlets and debris basins.

“That series of storms two weeks ago, we took about 300,000 cubic yards of material out of our debris basins,” L.A. County Department of Public Works spokesman Bob Spencer said. “This is going to be about the same.”



The basins, he said, would take several weeks to empty completely.



“The day after an event like this, what’s in the debris basins is basically soup,” Spencer said. “It’s like trying to clean out a swimming pool with a shovel. The water’s just going to slide out.”

 

With a capacity of 10,000 cubic yards, the Mullally flood basin on Manistee Drive in La Cañada Flintridge is one of the city’s smallest but is crucial to the area. Its overflow on Saturday sent mud oozing into dozens of homes in the Paradise Valley neighborhood.



“What happened with Mullally yesterday is a huge boulder clogged the inlet and caused the debris to top over and come down the street,” Spencer said. “We were prepared for that, that’s why all the K-rails were here. But there was such a tremendous amount of debris that it overwhelmed" the barriers.



Of the 43 mud-damaged homes in La Cañada Flintridge and La Crescenta, nine were red-tagged, meaning entry was temporarily prohibited. In addition, 25 vehicles were damaged.



— Corina Knoll

The Los Angeles Police Department’s Southwest Division is investigating a string of killings after three apparently unrelated shootings early Sunday.

[Updated 7:52 p.m. A fourth fatal shooting was reported in South Los Angeles on Sunday afternoon. Two male suspects approached the victim, Ruben Analoc, 18, of Los Angeles, in the 4100 block of Compton Avenue near the Ross Snyder Recreation Center and opened fire, officials said. Analoc was hit in the head. No further details were available on the incident, which occurred about 1 p.m.]    

The first occurred shortly after midnight when a 19-year-old man was shot to death as he stood in front of a residence on the 4500 block of South 3rd Avenue in the Hyde Park neighborhood of South Los Angeles. Police had no information about the suspect, but investigators believed it was gang-related, LAPD Officer Karen Rayner said.

The second shooting occurred at 3:50 a.m. near Abourne Road and Santo Tomas Drive in the Crenshaw neighborhood of South L.A. The slain victim was a man in his 30s who was seated in a sports utility vehicle when an unknown assailant shot him once in the head, Rayner said.

The third killing was believed to be gang-related and occurred at 4:30 a.m. near West 23rd Street and Cimarron Street in the Jefferson Park neighborhood of South Los Angeles. Two brothers were standing on the sidewalk when two female assailants and two male assailants shot them multiple times.

One brother was killed and the other was in critical condition at a hospital this morning, Rayner said.

— Garrett Therolf

Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa moved Thursday to eliminate 1,000 city jobs and begin planning layoffs of city employees, one day after the City Council failed to muster the votes to do so to deal with an ongoing budget crisis.



“We’re living beyond our means, we have difficult choices to make, we must protect our economic future,” Villaraigosa said during a late afternoon news conference. “Unfortunately, instead of making progress, we are headed in the wrong direction. That ends today.”



“If you think I’m not going to move ahead, you don’t know me well,” Villaraigosa told reporters. “I don’t do this because I want to, I do this because I must.”

 

A day after the City Council delayed action on the job cuts for 30 days, Villaraigosa sent a letter to department heads stating he would first use powers provided within the City Charter to eliminate jobs, moving as many employees as possible to other vacant positions.

Villaraigosa’s budget team believes that at least 360 workers can be cut by moving them into other posts not affected by the budget crisis. Those jobs would be in agencies such as Los Angeles World Airports and the Department of Water and Power, which are not part of the cash-strapped general fund, which pays for basic services.

Two city officials said the mayor’s layoff action would most immediately apply to members of the Engineers and Architects Assn., which represents roughly 6,500 city employees, as well as workers who are not represented by any union.

The city’s labor agreement bars Villaraigosa from laying off workers with the Coalition for L.A. City Unions, which represents another 22,000 civilian employees. That process cannot occur until July 1 at the earliest.

The city’s budget shortfall is $212 million this year and will be at least $484 million in the fiscal year that starts July 1. The actions are expected to save up to $50 million this fiscal year, said Villaraigosa Deputy Chief of Staff Matt Szabo. Between that savings and the major’s push to privatize city parking garages by the end of June — which the Villaraigosa administration predicts would raise between $100 million and $200 million — the vast majority of the city’s budget shortfall could be covered, he said.

"The No. 1 priority here is protecting the reserve fund. It’s unacceptable to have a reserve fund at or near zero at the end of this fiscal year," Szabo said.

Victor Gordo, a lawyer for the labor coalition, warned that the city would face financial consequences if it tries to lay off his organization’s members starting July 1. That’s because the coalition’s agreement requires the city to give long-delayed raises in the event of layoffs, he said.

“We believe that’s too costly to the city” to carry out, he said.

— Maeve Reston, Phil Willon and David Zahniser at Los Angeles City Hall

With the Los Angeles City Council weighing a plan to eliminate 1,000 government jobs, a top budget adviser said the city could save $69.3 million next year by halting hiring at the Police Department and laying off newly hired police officers.



City Administrative Officer Miguel Santana, responding to a request for information from council members, laid out the savings that could be achieved by canceling plans for hiring 103 officers and laying off 616 probationary officers in the academy and the department.



Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa and the Council promised last year to keep hiring enough police officers to maintain a force of 9,963 at the LAPD. But they have come under new pressure as they look to scale back workers in other departments. The cut to police officers would save $15.2 million over the next five months, Santana’s report states.



That proposal was described as a non-starter by two council members Wednesday afternoon. “I can’t imagine laying people off in the academy — or the probationaries,” said Councilman Greig Smith, who voted earlier this week to cut 1,000 civilian jobs.




As part of the report, Santana also revealed that the city’s shortfall has been revised upward, from $208 million to $218 million.



Cutting 1,000 civilian jobs is expected to save roughly $65 million, slightly less than the proposal to stop the police hiring and eliminate the LAPD’s probationary employees.



Some on the council are open to a considerably less severe proposal, which would cancel the recruitment of new officers but avoid layoffs. Such a move would save nearly $2.2 million this year and $7.7 million in the fiscal year that starts July 1.



A third plan, which would halt hiring and impose layoffs on the 87 recruits who are in the Police Academy, would save $3.6 million this year and $16.1 million in the fiscal year that starts July 1, the report states.



— David Zahniser

Hundreds of advocates for police officers, firefighters, the arts, senior programs, AIDS services and other municipal programs turned out Wednesday morning to urge the Los Angeles City Council not to cut 1,000 jobs to balance the budget.

With city officials looking for ways to close a $208-million gap, Council President Eric Garcetti said that council members had received 89 requests to speak on the job-cut plan. That number was expected to rise as more people moved through the council chamber. You can watch the hearing here.

The proposal submitted to the council would scale back the workforce in 33 departments while shielding key positions, particularly police officers. But employees and activists said several other city agencies also play a critical role in protecting public safety.

Backers of the Human Services Department, which is slated for elimination, said the agency’s conflict- resolution mediators have helped reduce ethnic tensions since the 1965 Watts riots. Supporters of libraries said their books and computers keep students out of trouble after school.

“Don’t let our city experience a bankruptcy of spirit, a bankruptcy of culture,” said Roy Stone, president of the Librarians’ Guild within the American Federal, State, County and Municipal Employees Union Local 2626. “That is far worse than the financial bankruptcy you’re considering.”

Other labor leaders argued that officials should drop the layoff plan and go after uncollected debts, which they estimated at $600 million. “Maybe a hundred of those attorneys that are scheduled for layoffs could help,” said Bob Schoonover, president of Service Employees International Union Local 721.

Whether the proposal will be approved by the council is unclear. At least a third of its 15 members spoke out against the job reductions earlier this week. And Wednesday morning, members signaled support to advocates for various programs and agencies who were in the audience.

Backers of the Cultural Affairs Department, which is slated to lose at least 16 positions, showed up wearing stickers such as “Art Fuels L.A.” and “Art Feeds L.A.” Councilman Tom LaBonge, who represents part of Hollywood, quickly grabbed one of those stickers and put it on his own lapel as the testimony began.

Adolfo Nodal, a onetime general manager of the department, urged the council to confer with the agency’s current manager and its volunteer board to find more surgical ways to reduce arts programs.

“They can work with you to make the right cuts,” he said. “But don’t destroy us.”

— David Zahniser at Los Angeles City Hall

Photo: Council members listen to City Administrative Officer Miguel Santana give layoff recommendations during a council meeting Wednesday. Credit: Allen J. Schaben / Los Angeles Times

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The appetite for layoffs may be fading at Los Angeles City Hall, with Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa saying that other concessions by the city’s workforce could go a long way toward eliminating a nearly $200-million budget shortfall.



Standing outside his office, the mayor told reporters this afternoon that the city could address much of the financial crisis if public employee unions agreed to reduce their pay — or let some city services be performed by cheaper, private contractors. Villaraigosa also said that the city could address its spiraling retirement costs if workers agreed to pay more toward their pensions – 9% of their salaries instead of the current 7%.



“If they contributed a couple of percentage points more, that could put us in a much stronger financial position,” he said. “If we work through this together, I think we can minimize layoffs.”



The mayor and five City Council members have instructed their top budget analyst, City Administrative Officer Miguel Santana, to come up with a report explaining how the city could eliminate at least 1,000 city jobs – either through layoffs or by moving employees into vacant posts that aren’t covered by the cash-strapped general fund budget. That report is due by the end of the afternoon.

Barbara Maynard, spokeswoman for the Coalition of L.A. City Unions, did not respond to Villaraigosa’s comments. She previously has said the city should move more quickly with last year’s plan to give 2,400 workers early retirement. “They haven’t implemented the contract we’ve already negotiated, and there are cost-saving opportunities there,” she said.



Councilwoman Janice Hahn said today that she too is “not convinced” of the need for layoffs. But she voiced support for moving 1,000 employees out of their current jobs and into vacant positions at Los Angeles World Airports and the Port of Los Angeles, which have separate budgets that are not affected by plummeting tax revenues.



Hahn said she would support reassigning those workers “as long as they could still get a paycheck from the city.”



Villaraigosa said he does not know how many vacant positions are available. But City Controller Wendy Greuel estimated earlier this week that as many as 1,200 people would take early retirement in agencies and positions that are not part of the general fund budget.



Meanwhile, Councilman Dennis Zine expressed skepticism about the budget talks, complaining that the estimate of 1,000 job cuts was arbitrary. “I don’t know who came up with the 1,000,” he said this morning, not long after he spoke with one of the city’s top union leaders.



Zine was, in fact, one of five council members who signed a Jan. 20 letter calling on Santana to develop a list of “no fewer than 1,000 jobs” that could be eliminated.

— David Zahniser at Los Angeles City Hall

Photo: Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa at a town hall meeting on school reform this week. Credit: Luis Sinco / Los Angeles Times

Los Angeles City Controller Wendy Greuel issued a new warning today about the city’s finances, saying the City Council would incur huge risks if it tries to patch a nearly $200-million budget gap by using the city’s emergency reserve fund.



In a letter to Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa and the council, Greuel said a decision to deplete the reserve – which currently stands at $189 million — would make it difficult for the city to borrow money to pay its ongoing bills. By dramatically shrinking the reserve fund, the city could wind up “increasing the cost of borrowing, or, worse yet, jeopardizing our ability to obtain the loan in the first place,” Greuel wrote.



The city issues Tax Revenue Anticipation Notes twice a year to ensure that it has enough cash to cover ongoing expenses.



The controller’s letter went out hours before the council went behind closed doors to discuss negotiations with various employee unions. On the table is a proposal  to eliminate 1,000 jobs by July 1, part of a larger effort to balance the budget.



The Coalition of L.A. City Unions, which represents roughly 22,000 workers, said in a letter today that the council does not have the authority to seek new concessions. City Administrative Officer Miguel Santana, the top budget adviser, disagreed.



— David Zahniser at Los Angeles City Hall