{"id":219237,"date":"2010-01-21T09:29:55","date_gmt":"2010-01-21T14:29:55","guid":{"rendered":"tag:ronkayela.com,2010:\/\/1.888"},"modified":"2010-01-22T03:05:26","modified_gmt":"2010-01-22T08:05:26","slug":"this-is-no-way-to-run-a-city","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/219237","title":{"rendered":"This Is No Way to Run a City"},"content":{"rendered":"

UPDATE:<\/b> The piecemeal disclosure of the city’s financial troubles continued Thursday morning with City Administrative Officer Miguel Santana reporting<\/a> tax revenue has come in $186 million below the budget with sales taxes down 16 percent versus the budget forecast of 6 percent. “The city hasn’t seen this since the Great Depression,” Santana said., after his letter <\/a>outlining options from city officials was leaked..<\/i><\/p>\n

The mayor flits from photo op to photo op, tweeting all the way about the fantastic job he’s doing leading the city’s efforts to deal with the rain while the City Council spends endless hours debating the virtues of marijuana and lactation rooms.
\"CITYHALLSALE.jpg\"<\/a><\/span>
And the first the public knows about plans to sell off airports and other assets comes from a leaked memo. <\/a><\/p>\n

Nero would be proud to know that his legacy of imperious and incompetent leadership is still alive after all these years.<\/p>\n

This is how you ruin a city, not run it. If there honor among these thieves, hari kari would be their only redemptive option. Maybe that’s what they intend by committing political suicide like this.<\/p>\n

The city is in dire straits, the result of years of giveaways to unions, subsidies to developers, heavy spending on social welfare programs while the streets, sidewalks, water pipes and electrical grid deteriorated.<\/p>\n

They are giving new meaning now to what we have long known: City Hall is for sale.<\/p>\n

But now it’s not the corruption of political money and the “juice” that feeds a complex network of politicians and their gofers, lobbyists, lawyers, consultants, PR manipulators, contractors, unions and all the others who live off the public treasury.<\/p>\n

Now what’s for sale are parking structures, Van Nuys and Ontario airports and whatever else they can find a buyer for to keep the cash flowing to avoid bankruptcy. <\/p>\n

What’s next the DWP and LAX, the zoo and Convention Center?<\/p>\n

Or will laying off 1,000 city workers, presumably with golden handshakes, on top of the 2,400 retiring with sweetened pensions be enough?<\/p>\n

“Revenues are significantly lower than original projections and we are
\nprepared to make tough decisions, including layoffs and cuts in
\nless-essential city services to our constituents,” states a letter
\nbeing circulated among city leaders. A draft copy was obtained by The
\nTimes.<\/a><\/p>\n

“We will consider the elimination, consolidation, or outsourcing of
\ncity assets and services, furloughs and layoffs where permissible,
\ncontinued managed hiring with consideration of a hard hiring freeze and
\npublic-private partnerships that will generate revenue.” <\/p>\n

This isn’t a strategy to save the city; it’s a panicked and desperate effort to avoid bankruptcy and save themselves.<\/p>\n

Every department in City Hall is in chaos and public services shrinking without any regard to what’s important. They ignored every warning and kept on spending like there was no tomorrow. <\/p>\n

Well, tomorrow is here and the bills have come due.<\/p>\n

They talk about creating jobs but they are and have been killing jobs. They are and have been pandering to poverty and destroying the middle class and the hopes and dreams of those working so hard to become middle class.<\/p>\n

They are worse than Bernie Madoff who only stole from the rich. They steal from the rich and poor and everyone in between and betray their oaths of public office.<\/p>\n

They treat us like we are fools, people of no account.<\/p>\n

The mayor talks of dreams of subways and green energy and great jobs and good schools but we know now they are just pipe dreams to lull the people to sleep.<\/p>\n

All he talks about is himself and how happy is he and what a great job he is doing, never a word of truth about us.<\/p>\n

It’s unbelievable really. They treat their bosses, the people who pay the bills, with contempt and do their best to keep us divided and weak, apathetic and defeated. <\/p>\n

Those days are over and their days are numbered. They can’t hide the truth any longer.<\/p>\n

They have only one way
\nout and that’s to sue for peace with the four million people who
\ntrusted them to be their public servants, not their haughty masters.<\/p>\n

Instead of thwarting Neighborhood Councils and community leaders at every turn while they huddle in back rooms with union bosses and the civic elite, they need to go out in the community and get an earful. <\/p>\n

Instead of phony budget surveys and scripted Council meetings, they need to empower their local community leaders and support their goals.<\/p>\n

Instead of secrecy and arrogance, they need to open their doors and windows of City Hall and humble themselves by giving the people a seat at the table of power. <\/p>\n

It will surely happen whether they do it voluntarily and honorably today or in the months to come at the polls and in bankruptcy court.<\/div>\n

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UPDATE: The piecemeal disclosure of the city’s financial troubles continued Thursday morning with City Administrative Officer Miguel Santana reporting tax revenue has come in $186 million below the budget with sales taxes down 16 percent versus the budget forecast of 6 percent. “The city hasn’t seen this since the Great Depression,” Santana said., after his […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4290,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-219237","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/219237","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4290"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=219237"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/219237\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=219237"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=219237"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=219237"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}