Valley Village loses a beloved citizen

Bruce Apple was a therapist. He particularly liked working with kids at Children’s Hospital. He performed his services free of charge.

He was also the consummate host at parties, making guests feel comfortable. He was unassuming and took everything in stride.

His overall demeanor was enviable.

Bruce was a dog…a big dog. I can only imagine the joy he brought to the patients. The children must have been in awe of his size, but comforted by his gentleness.

I don’t know how to honor him, but perhaps a contribution in his name to Children’s Hospital might be appropriate.

The end, at last

I am in pretty good spirits as I write this. The 2013 city election campaigns are almost over. Soon I can go back to writing about other topics…and there are a host of them: tax policy, commuter rail, state and local budgets, to name a few, not to mention life in Valley Village and Incline Village.

At this stage, we know almost everything about the candidates. I don’t think we want to know anything more.

To me, this race, like others, boils down to character and potential. That is why I am voting for Garcetti, Galperin and Trutanich.

I surprised myself with that last pick. I was not too happy with Trutanich after the way he handled running for DA, dismissing his promise to stick it out as City Attorney. He also has a tendency to talk way too much at public meetings, leaving little time for Q&A. I always felt he did that deliberately. Feuer, on the other hand, was always open to questions.

My opinion changed after listening to the City Attorney debate at Valley Village. Trutanich acted like an attorney, displaying a passion for defending the city. Feuer cam across as a college professor – he might be great teaching a contracts course in law school, but managing the equivalent of one of the largest law firms in the country is another matter. I do not think he can manage beyond the desk he used in the Assembly.

What swayed me in the end was this simple question: if I were being tried, who would I want to defend me – Feuer or Trutanich?

Galparin was an easy choice. He has far better technical and analytical skills. His professional background is solid, unlike Zine who wrote traffic tickets for a living and voted for every public union raise as a member of the City Council.

I have been in Garcetti’s corner since he won the primary. I backed Kevin James and was glad when he, along with candidates Perry and Pleitez – both of whom I respect, endorsed him.

While Garcetti and Greuel voted almost identically on key issues while serving together on the City Council, Garcetti had the courage to admit his mistakes, including his vote for what turned out to be unsustainable wage packages offered to city employees. Furthermore, when he addressed the unions while seeking their support, he did not apologize for the modest pension reform measures he backed as Council President. It took character to do that. By contrast Greuel all but said the reforms were illegal despite the City’s Attorney’s opinion to the contrary.

Garcetti produced measurable improvements for his district. When I think of Greuel, I think of Valley Plaza, the most notable example of blight in the South Valley.

Garcetti never wavered from a position throughout the campaign, while Greuel promised conflicting stances to satisfy whatever group she was courting at the time.

Most people equate my writings with a crusade against Greuel. I understand, but most are unaware of my past support for the former Council Member and cooperation with her.

I enthusiastically supported Greuel in her first run for City Council. I viewed her as a reformer. My enthusiasm diminished steadily and was replaced with disdain after she supported the IBEW job machine in the form of Measure B, term extensions deceitfully marketed as term limits and the phone tax – another deceitfully worded measure that disguised a tax increase as a tax decrease. She attempted to place all of the blame for Measure B on Garcetti throughout this campaign when she was one of the biggest cheerleaders for it.

After she won the City Controller’s race in 2009, a campaign where she lied about her opponent’s tax status, Greuel and I did have a dialog. At her request, we had one-on-one meetings where we discussed the role of the controller. I still appreciate her willingness to talk to this day.

I gave her space and maintained a neutral stance for several months while I watched how she performed.

The City Controller’s office offers a platform like no other for advocating reform and shining the light on shady dealings. Laura Chick was just getting the hang of it in her last years. She raised the bar. Greuel lowered it.

It became apparent to me that Greuel was simply using it as a stepping stone to the mayor’s office. She was simply interested in rolling out press releases about waste, fraud and abuse, but never followed up. To this day, she has never substantiated her claims of identifying $160 million in savings. If anything, the LA Times exposed it as fiction.

Truly, if there was a basis in fact for the savings, a real controller would have fought to implement the changes necessary to bring them about. She was quiet as a church mouse. Probably too afraid lest she would offend potential backers for her mayoral campaign.

It is also impossible to believe her promise to maintain independence in labor negotiations when her campaign has been bankrolled by the city’s unions. She unequivocally stated she would stand with the unions.

Compensation and benefit reforms are essential to the city’s long-term health. Garceti does not have Greuel’s baggage and can operate from a position of true independence. Will he get everything needed from negotiations? Probably not, but he has a far better chance of making a real deal than Greuel, who will probably settle for window dressing to create the appearance of progress.

And with Greuel, it is all about appearances. Form over substance.

Garcetti has the potential to build true coalitions, and the independence to do so.

Feuer riding coattails

A recent Mike Feuer mailer compares the candidate to his father.

Mel Feuer is a true war hero and deserves to be honored for his service.

It is quite another thing that candidate Mike Feuer attempts to connect his father’s war record to his campaign and benefit from it.

Many of us have relatives who participated in World War II; some never returned. We honor and respect them, but would we attempt to play off their individual achievements and sacrifices to attain a personal objective?

We are responsible for our own actions. It is disingenuous to accrue recognition through the actions of others, especially when it is for service to the country.

Higher education enhanced at a higher elevation

I had a challenging year managing the finances at Sierra Nevada College in Incline Village, NV. The campus is a short walk from the north shore of Lake Tahoe at around 6.300 feet in elevation.

It was a year where the school weaned itself from the financial support provided by Michael Milken’s Knowledge Universe Learning Group (KULG).

Milken’s name should be very familiar to anyone in the world of finance. The former “junk bond king” served his time and re-emerged with a passion to improve society through education. He also beat what was diagnosed as terminal prostate cancer. He created a foundation devoted to fund research of treatments and cures for the disease. The foundation grew to become the largest single philanthropic source of funds dedicated to prostate cancer research.

Sierra Nevada College was cash-strapped before Milken stepped in. His efforts bought time for a new strategy to take hold. He attracted top-notch talent to serve on the board and in the administration.

The college officially ended its affiliation with Milken in 2011, in a position to rely on tuition revenue as the primary source of cash.

In my year as CFO, the operating margin improved by $1 million – from a deficit of $500K to a projected positive result of $500K (for the record, this is public information). There were several key individuals who played a role in the turnaround, but all of us had to succeed for the college to survive.

The strategy for success was simple – fiscal sustainability. Los Angeles should try it.

I left one last impression before I wrapped up business on the campus.

A photograph I shot is the backdrop for this postcard announcing the college’s new MFA program.

I took many pictures of the region, in all four seasons. This one was taken at Sand Harbor after a snowfall in January.

Does Wendy know what an audit is?

Wendy Greuel questioned whether mayoral candidate Eric Garcetti knew what an audit was.

One can certainly turn that question around based on the recent discovery of $42 million in special transportation funds that should have been transferred to the general fund. The amount accumulated over 17 years and should have been detected by routine audits.

Greuel claims she had warned the City Council about accountability of special revenue funds. Well, if she had suspicions, why didn’t the $42 million show up on her list of waste, fraud and abuse? It would have dwarfed all but one of the items – almost all of which are figments of her imagination.

The answer is obvious – Greuel flunked auditing 101.

I don’t think we want her managing the city’s budget.

Did Doug McIntyre cross the red line?

KABC 790″s morning show host Doug McIntyre is one of my favorites. For the record, I also enjoy KPCC’s Larry Mantle. These two gentlemen are not afraid to ask challenging questions of their guests and do not hesitate to follow-up when the answers miss the point.

Therefore, it is very disappointing when a guest appears to receive special treatment.

Such is the case whenever McIntyre interviews City Controller and mayoral candidate Wendy Greuel.

Could it have anything to do with his business relationship with Greuel’s husband, or with Greuel herself?

Almost anyone who has followed local politics knows the connection between them, but I would dare say the vast majority of his listeners and readers have been in the dark – and may still be. It was not until recently that McIntyre very openly and clearly disclosed it in both the Daily News and on KABC. He claims he has mentioned it on his show, but this is an election year and he he needs to be mindful of reminding his audience during his interviews with the mayoral candidates.

I’ve questioned his kid glove treatment of Wendy before.

Disclosure only goes so far. A journalist promising a candidate a public favor crosses the line in any event.

But that’s what happened on Monday morning, May 6th, when McIntyre interviewed Greuel.

Greuel whined about not receiving an answer from her opponent Eric Garcetti concerning Measure B (the controversial solar initiative her friends in the IBEW backed in 2009).

She claimed Garcetti blocked a hearing on the measure prior to the election and asked McIntyre if he would ask her opponent why he may have done so. Garcetti is scheduled to appear on his show before too long. Doug agreed to do so in a heartbeat.

So is he now Greuel’s surrogate for John Shallman?

Why didn’t McIntyre question Greuel about her support of Measure B and the cash her campaign received from the IBEW when she ran for controller the same year?

Here’s what he said in his Daily News column of 11/10/2009:
Nearly every elected official endorsed Measure B without knowing what it would cost to the nearest billion. People who should have known better, like council members Wendy Greuel and Greig Smith, cheered it on. Eventually, Smith feebly backpedaled, saying had he known the real costs he wouldn’t have voted to put Measure B on the ballot. That’s leadership.

That, my friends, is the closest McIntyre has ever come to publicly criticizing Greuel. You would think he would have recalled such a rare instance during last Monday’s interview.

Will he act on Greuel’s request and question Garcetti? Will he allow Garcetti the same privilege, although it would be too little, too late given that the election is just around the corner?

The ball is in Doug’s court.

Texting and politics are a dangerous combination

Mayoral candidate Wendy Greuel criticized opponent Eric Garcetti of accepting the endorsement of Kevin James, who ran a respectable third in the primary, right ahead of Jan Perry.

A Greuel campaign mailer referred to James as an “Obama hater,” alluding to his comparison of Obama to former British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain. She attempted to paint James’ statement, which was made during the 2008 presidential campaign, as the equivalent of characterizing Obama as a Nazi sympathizer.

Of course, Chamberlain was not a Nazi sympathizer; he was trying to avoid war with Germany and made concessions that were widely criticized in hindsight. That knowledge is lost on Greuel.

Yet, Greuel aggressively pursued James for his endorsement, as evidenced by a string of text messages she sent. Almost sounding lovesick in her pursuit, she even wrote, “I am stalking u:)” and “U are beloved – I hear it a lot.” The messages were reported by the LA Weekly. Not the kind of chit-chat one would expect her to initiate with someone she tries to paint as a “Nazi sympathizer.”

Greuel and her manager John Shallman are prone to defamatory hyperbole. They had previously compared Eric Garcetti to Wisconsin Governor John Walker because of the modest pension reform proposals he supported in the City Council. They also slammed Jan Perry for tax liens she satisfied responsibly and in due course.

Chamberlain’s appeasement strategy was at least driven by a desire for world peace. Greuel’s appeasement of the DWP’s IBEW union is motivated by money.