Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa on Wednesday said he doesn\u2019t expect his call to shut down nonessential city agencies two days a week, if enacted, would continue more than three months.
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<\/br>\u201cWe don\u2019t expect that we would be closing City Hall, if you will, two days a week beyond July," the mayor said during a morning interview on CNN.
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<\/br>Still, he said, Los Angeles residents should expect to see significant cuts to services and the city\u2019s workforce as he and the City Council struggle to close a $212-million budget deficit, predicted to double next year.
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<\/br>He blamed the shortfall on a recession-fed decline in tax revenue and the city\u2019s expanding payroll costs, and again called on city employees to accept a 15% pay cut.
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<\/br>\u201cThere\u2019s no scenario where we don\u2019t have to trim our services and the cost of our payroll," Villaraigosa told CNN\u2019s chief business correspondent Ali Velshi.
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<\/br>Some city officials raised doubts about Villaraigosa’s ability to order such a sweeping shutdown. Gerry Miller, the council\u2019s legislative analyst, said the mayor "does not have the unilateral authority to do that" under the city charter.
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Villaraigosa has been taking his budget message to the airwaves all day, appearing on national cable news shows and local radio programs.
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<\/br>The media blitz comes amid his escalating political feud with the Council, which last week rejected a Villaraigosa-backed hike in electric bills. In response, the Department of Water and Power is refusing to transfer $73.5 million to the city\u2019s decimated general fund. Utility executives said that without a rate hike, which they said is necessary to cover the fluctuating cost of coal and the mayor\u2019s renewable agenda, the DWP cannot afford to make the payment.
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<\/br>Without the money, City Controller Wendy Greuel has warned that the city could run out of cash within weeks.
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<\/br>Villaraigosa called Tuesday for non-essential services, such as libraries, parks and senior centers, to be shut down twice a week, saying the loss of $73.5 million had forced his hand.
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<\/br>The Coalition of L.A. City Unions, which represents roughly 22,000 city workers, questioned whether the mayor has the authority to carry out the plan and complained that its members — and the public — had become "collateral damage" in a political fight over electric rates. Coalition representatives said their contract prohibits the city from laying off or furloughing members though the end of the fiscal year, June 30.
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<\/br>— Phil Willon at Los Angeles City Hall<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa on Wednesday said he doesn\u2019t expect his call to shut down nonessential city agencies two days a week, if enacted, would continue more than three months.\u201cWe don\u2019t expect that we would be closing City Hall, if you will, two days a week beyond July," the mayor said during a morning […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4678,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-519987","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/519987","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\/4678"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=519987"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/519987\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=519987"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=519987"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=519987"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}