The Walmart Protest: Greuel, Garcetti and Perry

The unions spoke and Greuel, Garcetti and Perry buckled under.

Labor leaders asked local officials to refuse campaign contributions from Walmart and the three City Hall regulars complied. Kevin James, the sole outsider in the race, was critical of their decision.

According to an article in Blogdowntown, Greuel said Walmart has been getting special treatment for “far too long.”

Garcetti linked Walmart with a “race to the bottom” as far as wages go.

Perry said she wanted jobs that offered a “reasonable quality of life.”

The three candidates are the same ones who grant tax breaks to developers who create low-wage jobs, who accept union money and hand out generous benefits to their members, and have much to do with the deterioration of municipal services to the citizens of Los Angeles, many of whom are part of the middle class they purport to support.

The most laughable comment came from Maria Elena Durazo, executive secretary-treasurer of the Los Angeles County Federation of Labor: “It doesn’t take campaign finance reform to prevent Walmart from wrapping its tentacles around our political system in L.A. County.”

If Walmart has tentacles, then the public unions are giant anacondas crushing the city and suffocating the residents.

And why pick on Walmart?  Why not Target? The retail industry as a whole pays lower than average wages, not to mention the hotel, tourism and other segments that depend on unskilled or semiskilled labor. These industries are vital to the Los Angeles economy. The City Council does not appear to have a problem with their expansion in general.

At least two of these three insider candidates will be out of a job soon. 

You may see them cleaning a spill on aisle number nine at a Walmart near you.

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When Naivety and Opportunisim Collide

Now the SEIU is comparing Mayor Villaraigosa to Wisconsin Governor Walker.

Who woulda thunk that last year?

I cannot blame the mayor for pursuing pension reform, but why has he waited until recently to suggest even modest changes?

The first (and also one of the last) city budget days I attended was early in the mayor’s first term.  He acknowledged the problems posed by the structural deficit created by the city’s inflexible compensation and benefit program, but that was it. He made no effort to deal with it until last year, and then only scratched the surface.  Retirement and health benefits are still on the rise and swallowing more of the general fund.

Villaraigosa did not want to risk aggravating the public unions – it would have been devastating to his political opportunism. 

Now that he is in the twilight of his mayoral tenure, why not take a chance and turn on his supporters?  After all, a future cabinet post might be his if President Obama is reelected, but leaving Los Angeles on the road to bankruptcy without at least giving the appearance of doing something to prevent it would tarnish his image on Capitol Hill.  And it’s image and appearance that defines the mayor; not substance.

I actually feel a little sorry for the civilian union employees of the city.  A little sorry; not entirely sorry. They trusted Villaraigosa and had promise after promise broken. Villaraigosa was to the unions what Bernie Madoff was to his investors.  He offered unsustainable deals and the employees fell for them.

It’s been said time and again – when a deal sounds too good to be true, it usually is.

It amounts to exponential naivety on the part of the unions.  The members should also be asking whether their leaders were complicit.

I do have to credit the unions with their clever public relations campaign – “Villariagosa and Walker separated at birth.”

Maybe the DNC and Obama will get the message that their chosen gavel swinger in Charlotte is a  Charlotte-tan.

The unions can do the nation a service if they knock the stage right out from under ‘the mayor who broke LA.”

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SLAPPing down a blog?

Academia Semillas del Pueblo : a charter school in El Sereno that has been, and still is, the subject of controversy.

According to a story in the Los Angeles Times, the school has performed well below standards and even lags behind schools with similar multilingual immersion programs.

Academia accrued negative publicity in 2007 after a confrontation with a KABC reporter who was investigating whether the school’s cultural mission, which includes an emphasis on Pre-Columbian social and educational practices, had a racist bent. A lawsuit was filed against the radio station and its popular morning host Doug McIntyre charging them with propagating hate speech. The case was dismissed and the plaintiffs were ordered to reimburse KABC for litigation costs.

Recently, the school’s legal counsel sent a cease and desist letter to the Mayor Sam blog  concerning its unflattering coverage of Academia’s administration.

The Mayor Sam blog has a reputation of being irreverent and raucous – especially when it allowed anonymous posts that were often raunchy and disrespectful (that has since changed).  I once took issue with the blog after I read offensive remarks posted by readers regarding a candidate in the 2009 CD2 special election.

However poorly I thought of the comments, I never once condemned the mission of Mayor Sam.  Despite its somewhat outrageous approach to covering local politics, it was a refreshing alternative to the innocuous reporting of the mainstream media in Los Angeles.

There’s nothing wrong with challenging the establishment.  Criticizing the actions of public institutions or officials is as integral part of our First Amendment rights.  Yes, there are limits – for example, you cannot willfully defame another party, which  Academia alleges Mayor Sam did.

However, were Mayor Sam’s criticisms defamatory or was it a classic case of whistle-blowing?

Not having followed any of the developments since the KABC confrontation, I cannot say.

Regardless of what they were, the cease and desist letter did not specifically refute the accusations, it just listed specific comments attributed to the blog that it claimed were potentially libelous.

The school is certainly entitled to defend its reputation, but it is always far more effective to do so by stating clear rebuttals, otherwise it simply amounts to shouting “you’re wrong.”  Threatening what could be construed as a strategic lawsuit against public participation (SLAPP) without first engaging in a debate comes across as overbearing and reactionary. 

We have to be able to challenge our government and public institutions through the media without the threat of retaliation. Academia is at least partially funded by tax dollars through the LAUSD. The way tax dollars are used in Los Angeles, especially by one of the most inept school boards in the nation, requires every whistle-blower we can get.

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Living on Borrowed Time

Up until about two weeks ago, there were two candidates for the mayor of Los Angeles willing to talk frankly about the sorry state of our city.

After Austin Beutner dropped out of the race, that left Kevin James as the only voice with the backbone to discuss the serious challenges facing Los Angeles.

But what about Jan Perry?

On occasion, she has been openly critical of the city’s direction, especially on DWP matters.  I was pleased when she challenged the shabby treatment she received at the hands of the Villaraigosa faction in charge of the redistricting committee.

So, I was anxious to hear what she had to say when she appeared at a candidate forum held at CSUN.  I listened to it in entirety, courtesy of a video posted at the Studio City Patch web site.

The event was moderated by none other than Chris Essel, former candidate for the CD2, and most recently the head of the Community Redevelopment Agency.

To be clear, it was a forum and not a debate. The questions were screened in advance.

To my great disappointment, it was more like watching Kathy Lee and Hoda (watch the SNL version.   It isn’t much different from the actual program).

Essel and Perry did not hesitate to pat each other on the back. At least they acknowledged their long-time friendship early in the program.  To that extent, credit them for full disclosure.  The content that followed wasn’t much of an improvement.

The closest Perry came to talking straight was when she described the city as being in a “fragile” state. 

If that’s the strongest term she could muster, then  the Council Member either does not fully understand the seriousness of the financial debacle facing us, or she is in denial.

Water mains will be replaced by the DWP on average every 200 years (the average age of existing mains is close to 100 years).  Fragile?

The current general fund deficit is $200 million, even after several years of cuts, with more of the same in the years to come.  Fragile?

Emergency response times increasing – fragile?

Fragile might be a more appropriate term for goods sold in a china shop.  I have news for Perry – the bull has already visited LA’s china shop. There’s nothing left but to sweep up the broken pieces.

She said she would support a less generous benefit tier for new employees to help rein in retirement and health costs.

That’s the absolute minimum needed to restore financial health.  The current plans will continue to absorb an increasing share of the general fund – no signal from Perry to deal with them.

She did spend about fifteen minutes (roughly one-fourth of the forum’s time) on the demise of the south central community garden, including a ten-minute video on the subject.  I realize the garden was important to some, but hardly a key issue in relation to all the others facing the city.

Los Angeles is a city living on borrowed time.  Perry, Garcetti and Greuel are not addressing the structural nature of the deficit.  No one expects anyone to offer perfect solutions, but all of the candidates have an obligation to educate the public about the dangers of not dealing with it.

Perry will appear at Valley Vote on May 21.  Let’s hope she has more to offer.

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Diversity, L.A. Style

Herb Wesson has been accused by many of  manipulating the City Council redistricting process.

Allow me to say a few words about that before moving on to the main subject of this post.

City Council President Wesson denied participating in any nefarious, behind the scenes deals regarding the maps ultimately approved by the  City Council.

The new boundaries resulted in significant realignments of the districts represented by Bernard Parks and Jan Perry that were adverse to the incumbents.  These changes would not have been noteworthy, except that Parks and Perry just happened to be the only council members who opposed Wesson’s selection as Council President.

Throwing salt on the wounds, Wesson removed the two from their powerful committees.

Wesson’s appointment of Andrew Westhall, his former Assistant Chief Deputy, as the head of the Redistricting Commission, created intrigue among the activist community. Many saw Westhall as Wesson’s tool.

Westhall’s presence probably benefitted  Toluca Lake’s bolt from the proposed boundaries of the Valley’s CD2. He is the President of the Greater Toluca Lake Neighborhood Council .

Taken as a whole, these instances pushed the envelope of coincidence to the bursting point….and perhaps ripped it open.

As bad as these machinations appear to be, the redistricting process reaffirmed an uglier, longstanding practice of Los Angeles politics – representative Balkanization.

Whites and Latinos comprise about half the population.  There is a degree of overlap between the two groups in the statistics, but neither represents a majority of the total population.  Asians and Blacks account for around 10% each.

Regardless of the guidelines contained in the Voting Rights Act covering the consideration of race in the configuration of  political boundaries, the relentlessness with which the Commission pursued the creation of districts dominated by  racial or ethnic segments is an embarrassment.

While so many national, state and local leaders tout diversity as a stabilizing influence on the country, the reality at the local level is quite the opposite.  Our City Council, in particular, preaches inclusion, but practices exclusion.

By focusing on safe seats for specific races or ethnic groups, not to mention pockets within other districts for religious sects, our City Council is encouraging divisiveness.  At that, the Redistricting Commission and Council were not fair – Asians did not rate treatment comparable to the other groups. Maybe they do not contribute enough cash; if they do, they are certainly being shortchanged.

Imagine how the residents of other nations would react if they followed the news of LA’s redistricting process?

They would label us hypocrites, and rightfully so.

Lacking an ethnic or racial majority, Los Angeles could easily have defended against charges of stacking, whereby a group is concentrated to create an overwhelming majority in a single district, which would create a wasted vote in a jurisdiction with several seats; or cracking , which dilutes a minority by spreading its members over multiple districts in order to dilute their votes. 

By following Neighborhood Council boundaries and natural or manmade barriers, instead of focusing so much on race and ethnicity,  there would have been a  few districts with a minority pool in excess of 50%, but many would have been comprised of super minorities in the range of 30% to 40% of those eligible to vote – also known as influence districts.

If a large (but less than a majority) group cannot elect a representative sympathetic to the needs of its members, voter apathy would be the culprit – not discrimination.

I do not think the purpose of the Voting Rights Act was to deal with apathy.

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Opening Mayoral Debate: Limited Topic, but Entertaining.

Unable to attend last week’s mayoral forum sponsored by Southern California Grantmakers, I listened to a complete audio tape of the event.

Considering the sponsoring organization promotes philanthropy, I was not surprised the discussion revolved around the subject – specifically, why does Los Angeles lag behind other major cities when it comes to donations in support of civic projects and programs? As moderator Warren Olney pointed out, our city’s ranking is perplexing given the great concentration of wealth here.

While all of the candidates read from their resumes about projects they implemented or supported, only one candidate attempted to answer why potential donors are not as generous when it comes to opening their wallets to the City of Los Angeles.

Kevin James, who served as Assistant U S Attorney, co-chair of Aids Project LA and evening radio host, pointed to widespread corruption in the city as a possible reason donations are not as high as expected.

No one disputed his assessment, but neither did the other candidates mention specific instances of corruption as James did.

Austin Beutner did raise a good point.  He expressed concern over the city’s shoddy accounting as a factor that would discourage confidence in the ability of our officials to assure funds are used appropriately.

James also emphasized the need to attract business back to L.A.  He stated that businesses are important source of donations we can ill afford to lose. He cited an instance when the Aids Project Los Angeles lost a donor due to the departure of a company.

Garcetti and James racked up more minutes than the others, but Garcetti’s comments, along with Greuel’s, were the least substantive.

Beutner was very soft-spoken.  As a result, his message was muted.

Perry emphasized her personal confidence in the economic potential of the AEG stadium plan.

Overall, this forum was a warm-up….. and it was short. Core services were not discussed and little was said about the overall state of the city’s finances.

I believe James made the best impression.  Perhaps his skills as a practicing attorney worked to his advantage.

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Rights, Privileges and Stupidity

Leon Trotsky was on the money about one thing: he stated we have the right to be stupid, but some people abuse the privilege.

Those are words that can apply to LAPD Chief Charlie Beck and  Mayor Villaraigosa. Their support for ignoring state law concerning the consequences of driving without a license is probably not just a violation of their oaths of office; it has also constructed another barricade on the road to resolving the illegal immigration crisis in our nation.

Put aside any opinion you might have on the practical merits or drawbacks to Beck’s or Villaraigosa’s arguments.

The debate over “comprehensive immigration reform” has been divisive enough without throwing more fuel on the fire. Adding this latest flub on top of the existing economic and social consequences of illegal immigration will make reform impossible for many more years to come. It will draw attention to the larger issue – granting licenses to the undocumented living in this country.

Drivers licenses will not make  illegal immigrants any better or worse behind the wheel ( although I am sure some of them are already safer drivers than their legal counterparts).

This is all about pandering for votes.

The President selected the mayor to chair the party’s convention in Charlotte, NC to secure Hispanic support. Those votes are needed given the failure of the administration to push for immigration reform, even when the Democrats had the majority in both houses.

The party’s strategy is understandable, but it has an Achilles Heel: the license controversy will follow Villariagosa all the way to Charlotte.  While it will probably not be discussed in public on the floor of the convention, the media will use the event to connect the Democrats to it, through Villaraigosa, in what could be a damaging blow to President Obama’s campaign, especially if unemployment and underemployment remain high.

As the top legal official in the city, City Attorney Carmen Trutanich’s support of the mayor’s and Beck’s position is even more confounding.  Mayor Villaraigosa failed the Bar three times, but Trutanich passed and is licensed to practice law (maybe our City Attorney is taking the meaning of practice too literally).

He is already at odds with DA Steve Cooley, who is concerned about the city’s exposure to civil lawsuits resulting from accidents caused by ignoring the state’s 30-day impound requirement.

Driving is not a constitutional right; it is a privilege.  The consequences of driving without a license are clearly established and should remain so unless the citizens of the state empower their legislators to change the law.

Beck, Villaraigosa and Trutanich would prefer to make their own modifications on the fly or, should I say, from behind the wheel while in the fast lane.

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Views from far away

When I compared the work of the City Council Redistricting Commission to how the Allies created Yugoslavia after the First World War, little did I realize the post would attract a modest but steady stream of views from that part of the world.

At least some people from the states once part of the most poorly defined nation ever created are now aware of the contrived process that shapes boundaries here in Los Angeles.

I wonder what kind of traffic I can generate by drawing a parallel between corruption in Los Angeles under Mayor Villaraigosa with corruption in Russia under Vladimir Putin? Let me tell you, at least the Russian people know how to protest against crooked leaders.  None of that camping in the park stuff of the Occupy Movement for them.  And they do it in the middle of the winter, too!

In the meantime, the dispute over the breakaway community of Toluca Lake goes on.

It may be time to call in a NATO peacekeeping force.

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Remaking Yugoslavia

The Los Angeles City Redistricting Commission has turned back the calendar.

Instead of recognizing natural boundaries and common community interests in redrawing council district borders, the members seem intent on creating a modern-day version of Yugoslavia.

I attended the latest round of redistricting hearings last night at Walter Reed Middle School in Studio City. Around 300 people turned out, some carrying signs or wearing t-shirts bearing messages suggesting support of community solidarity.

The hearing was delayed due to the late arrival of a few commission members. 160 speaker cards were submitted; I stayed through over half of the comments.  By the time I left, only five speakers had commented in favor of the draft plan.

My primary concern was the division of my neighborhood of Valley Village between CD2 and CD4.  A small slice of its western edge was arbitrarily and inexplicably thrown into the sprawling mass of CD4.  Our board members and stakeholders emphasized the need to keep our compact community together, especially when the boundaries include well-defined physical barriers such as the 170 and 101 freeways and the Tujunga Wash.  The whole of Valley Village is also covered under its own specific plan.

My own remarks took the issue further.  I expressed a preference that the whole of Valley Village remain in CD2 and not be assigned to CD4 in the final map.

One might wonder why that should make a difference, assuming we were undivided.

The proposed footprint of CD4 is an ugly rash across what is as close to being the geographic center of the city as any district.  As I told the commissioners, the boundaries make as much sense as the ones that created Yugoslavia after World War 1. The European powers somehow thought you could unite long-time cultural rivals into a cohesive nation-state that spanned the region from the Austrian border almost to Turkey.  It took a dictator to hold the country together after the Second World War. 

Proposed CD4 district slashes across the city's landscape

Contrived borders doomed Yugoslavia

CD4 as defined by the Commission is not the Balkans, but the demographics and interests are as varied as you will find anywhere in the city. The district has a leg that extends well into the northwest Valley and the overall boundaries stretch through the Cahuenga Pass all the way to Silver Lake. It also has a gerrymandered “appendage” (as one person euphemistically described it last night) that dangles into Hollywood, an obvious accommodation to one or two city council members.

Although we are all Angelenos, residents of the city have always closely associated themselves with their local or regional  communities of interests.  That’s not going to change, and that’s a good thing.  Local pride is healthy and adds benign quirkiness to the social strata in our sprawling metro area.

Diluted communities deliver muted messages to City Hall.  Public safety and environmental concerns in particular vary widely from one part of the city to another.  It is important that our elected officials receive clear, unified advice from the residents and focus on those concerns. It’s tough enough for city council members to devote time to broad issues such as the budget.  Trying to balance too many competing and unique needs within their own districts will only mean less quality time to address grassroots issues.

So now the Commission has to amend the maps.

Unfortunately, the current draft has a poison pill – CD4.

The district’s  massive landscape is adjacent to eight others.  Any change to CD4 will impact almost all of the eight, creating a ripple effect throughout the city.  The redistricting process may have to go back to square one.

This whole controversy could have been avoided if the elected officials had put aside selfish interests in selecting commission members, or had emphasized to them the importance of respecting neighborhood council boundaries.

It was another example of City Hall failing to accept neighborhood councils as integral components in the life of Los Angeles.

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Beutner Appears at VANC

Austin Beutner, a mayoral candidate, investment banker and former volunteer deputy to Mayor Villaraigosa appeared before a packed room at the Valley Alliance of Neighborhood Councils on Thursday evening.

The crowd of fifty community leaders and activists may have come close to exceeding the maximum occupancy of the room, but were in good hands with three LAFD firefighters in attendance.

Unfortunately, the LA Budget Advocacy Group also scheduled a meeting for that evening, which kept a few key regulars from attending.  The scheduling snafu was not lost on the VANC members. They voted to send the Budget Advocates chair a letter reminding him that the VANC meeting regularly occurs on the second Thursday evening of every month.

You can always count on frank, intelligent questions from VANC attendees.  Mayor Villaraigosa, City Attorney Trutanich and Controller Greuel should face as tough a test from the press, but the media seems content to simply take notes.

Candidate Beutner did not dodge any questions. He was businesslike and his answers appeared genuine; he displayed confidence. His performance was certainly above the standard associated with the usual suspects from City Hall.

He started off by mentioning the almost two hours it had taken him to drive from his home in Pacific Palisades to the meeting.  He offered the experience as an example of a city that does not work.

Beutner offered other anecdotes indicative of a floundering bureaucracy. DWP is still using ancient COBOL software for its billing system and has to bring in a retiree from Palm Springs to resolve programming issues (the utility will convert to Oracle next year at his insistence). No one can produce a list of the city’s top vendors – the IT chief could not even determine how much was paid to Microsoft (I bet Microsoft knows how much was received from the city for any given period). There is no standard chart of accounts, which makes it extremely difficult to track expenses – even the Controller’s office seemed to struggle with the concept of standard accounts.

I was not surprised by any of these disclosures.  Among other issues I’ve noted in this blog,  it takes the city almost a year to publish audited financial statements – one of the most essential and basic tasks of any organization –  a clear indication of inept management.

Beutner classified the city’s accounting as fraud. The budget is not balanced when overtime is deferred, when pension funding is based on an unrealistic earnings assumption of 8% and when infrastructure maintenance and replacement is ignored.

Regarding the City Council transferring the responsibility for $1.2 billion in sidewalk repairs to property owners he said, “The city is supposed to maintain infrastructure. That’s what we pay taxes for.”

He would like to pull the plug on the state’s High Speed Rail Project and instead invest in regional and local improvements to commuter rail and infrastructure.

When asked what he would do for education if elected, Beutner would use his office as a bully pulpit to point out mismanagement and lack of priorities at LAUSD.  As an example, he recently walked around a campus in Westchester and pointed out four flagpoles costing $100,000 each. Why did the school system spend so much  for them when other needs go unfulfilled?

On the possibility of municipal bankruptcy in the city’s future, he noted that the average resident does not know how dire the city’s financial state is.  “We cannot keep paying high labor costs,”  he emphasized.

VANC will invite each of the candidates in the months to come.

My advice to them: come prepared and be frank.

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