City of LA Less then 10 Percenters (Corrected)= LA CITY CLOWNCIL
For months we have heard some dum dum blabbing about Neighborhood Councils getting "less than 1 percent" of the vote. This allegedly proves that the Neighborhood Councils represent no one and blah blah blah.
So what will the dum dums on the 4th floor have to say when they have managed a whopping .07?
As of 12:45 am with almost 98% reporting a total of 106,487 ballots were cast out of 1,423,212 registered voters... that is 0.07 my friends.
City Clowncil, since you guys know so much about outreach... how about you show us how it is done. Otherwise, SHUT UP!
SHAME. Shame on all of you.
*****UPDATE: The 0.7% Number was taken off of the City's "Update #10" which gave the numbers reflected above, including the 0.7%. However, a few dum dums have decided to point out that the City Council managed to pull in 7% not 0.7% and had I bothered to move some decimal points in my head I would have known the City figures were inaccurate. (Proof that friends shouldn't let friends blog 2 sheets to the wind)
Normally, this is where I would apologize for my error but ya know what? NO.
When you fools can be overjoyed you spent MILLIONS of dollars on "outreach" and couldn't even get into double digits, when 3,500 votes gets you elected to the City Council anywhere other than Podunk Nowhere, then you should hang your head in shame. You have no mandate by any stretch of the imagination. You certainly are in NO position to tell a group of volunteers who have a $50,000.00 a year budget how to do outreach.
When you fools can be overjoyed you spent MILLIONS of dollars on "outreach" and couldn't even get into double digits, when 3,500 votes gets you elected to the City Council anywhere other than Podunk Nowhere, then you should hang your head in shame. You have no mandate by any stretch of the imagination. You certainly are in NO position to tell a group of volunteers who have a $50,000.00 a year budget how to do outreach.
The worst part is that some of you act as if you're HAPPY with 7%. Like this number is something to be proud of.
Seriously folks, this is a sad sad day for Los Angeles politics.
Posted by Councilman John @ 3/07/2007 01:40:00 AM
28 Comments:
No, idiot, that is 7% -- not .07%.
How pathetic.
You only missed this one by two orders of magnitude.
Please tell me you're not a product of LAUSD, Councilman John!
Even most of our dropouts can still work a calculator.
Just ask Tony Villa!
Mayor Sam can you please delete this inaccurate post? How embarassing.And I think we all know who Councilman John is now.
Some village lost their idiot, perhaps, Councilman John you can fill in.
Oh, and no one else here has ever made a mistake doing arithmetic, right? Give him a break. It was late. There may have been liquor involved. So give him a break on this one. Then hammer him on Home Depot. KIDDING!
Walter you are to kind. Councilman John is not. He deserves all the lumps he gets. He pounced with the desire to decredit the "less than one percent" critics of N/Cs and made an idiot of himself.
Bitter Councilman Yawn?
I think so.
The difference is every registered voter (and plenty who aren't) KNEW there was an election taking place today, they just CHOSE not to take part. (Choice is a major element of DEMOCRACY . . . choosing to vote AND choosing to run, or not).
With neighborhood councils, most stakeholders don't even KNOW the NCs exist.
Most NCs don't even come CLOSE to spending enough of their funds and time trying to TELL their stakeholders they do exist.
Some even do this on purpose, so no one challenges their pitiful hold on being the self-selected "voice" of their communities.
CHOICE can be an element of non- and mis-representation, as well. When those who hold the reigns of whatever power NCs do possess CHOOSE not to share it.
That's not democracy, period.
Now you've been schooled, sleep it off and try again later when/if the brain cells kick in.
(I won't even get into the math question . . .)
-- Never been to the "4th Floor"
Many also got totally pissed when Lisa Sarno's memo required them to spend at least 25 percent of their $50,00 each year on outreach.
What better use of the funds could there be? But still a number screamed. If that isn't proof of intentional negligence, I don't know what is. At least councilmembers who run know they have to spend money. You don't hear any of them crying because their HAVE to spend their campaign funds in communicating with voters.
(Yeah, yeah, I know, the NCs were screaming about the "principle" of being told what to spend their money on).
Sure, right!
Funny when the budget for our NC was figured out the cost of keeping the NC office running alone was $26,000.00 a year. I guess you could call the $200.00 phone bill outreach
Or the rent on the school auditorium what about printing cost of agendas.
The land use committee? and every local charity or event with their hand out thinking they are the most important thing in the community? The L.A.P.D. asking for funds to help pay for things they need, because the city doesn't want to give them the funds???
Yes how dare the NC's scream when DONE or the city starts to strangle them further by dictating where the funds have to go.
CJ screwed the pooch however 7% is nothing to brag about.
Don't worry the Clowncil is not concerned about 7%. They were grasping for an even lower turn out. I have viewed private memos of the unions and some developers with strategies considered to depress voter turnout far more. It is in their interest and saves them money.
the math is a simple mistake, and completely forgivable on a blog piece. However, my math teacher always said double check with an estimate.
that way you'd get roughly 10% without even thinking about it.
because the calculator shows .07, that is still correct, only you wouldn't need the % sign.
.07 IS 7% why? because the percent sign just means 'divided by 100'
either way its a bad turnout.
Nope, this is a sad, sad day for this blog that it allows a ranting, angry pissant to post this kind of "damn the facts" demagoguery -- even worse, using the avatar of one of the most respected politicians in recent L.A. history.
You're NO "John," Yawn. You're a porta-pottie of political bile and self-inflaming bitterness.
The whole point of your posting was that the city council was as bad, or worse, than the sub-sub-1 per centers in NC-ville who "rule" by negligence and self-appointment.
You mounted the tirade based on a paranoid, misguided assumption that it was defending your concept of NCs against an attack from city employees --ALSO wrong. The "sub-1-percents" (Straw man, etc) postings are and have always been posted by a DULY ELECTED NC board member, not employed by any city agency, as stated repeatedly. Keep misfiring badly calculated salvos if you like, it only avoids the issue.
Now that your fantasy bubble of "city council is just as bad" fantasy bubble is burst, you can't even bring yourself to back down and be a man (or woman, or ?)
(Your NC meetings must be one of those incredibly dysfunctional ones they keep talking about, where every beats their chest and demands obedience, never accomplishing anything but planning MORE useless meetings).
John Ferraro admitted when he was wrong. Period.
You need to pick a different ID. Maybe Councilman "Nate", like you, a graduate of the Emily Lattela School of political discourse.
Decimals, versus percentages.
Basic 5th grade math concepts, even at LAUSD, CJ.
You need a refresher course.
.07, posted without a % sign behind is it 7 percent.
Two methods of saying the same thing.
Also, the 7 percent turnout it not a final certified number from the city clerk, although it's unlikely to pass 10 percent.
Off year, no major races, no statewides, not national, no huge ballot initiatives, no big "union" issues, and and many uncontested races. L.A. does this to itself to a certain extent by not holding elections on even-numbered years.
Another explanation -- for both the lack of challengers and poor turnout -- is that city dwellers may not be as unhappy with the current batch of councilmembers as the upset pundits here keep claiming.
Is that possible - all the "clowncil" accusers here are way, way, way out of touch with the "stitches" and there's a combination of basic satisfaction and overall disinterest among the majority of voters?
Very possible, in fact, most likely. Likewise with the approval of Prop. R.
Big turnouts are often the result of people being generally pissed off by local government. No viable challengers, and no great desire to change can also = NOT angry and ready to bring in a new batch of leaders.
"Normally, this is when I would apologize . . ."
Since when??
there's a combination of basic satisfaction and overall disinterest among the majority of voters
Mostly the later. 90% of the people who live here don't even know the City Council exists. They think its Arnold or Dubya who fills their potholes. Or the pothole fairy.
I can see how bad the overall education system is here, just by reading this thread. its just littered with bad English and bad math.
even the update 'correction' by CJ underestimates the original mistake by a factor of 10.
very entertaining.
the bad turnout is simple apathy. an apathetic city of voters, beat down so many times they don't bother anymore. dismayed, disinterested, disenfranchised and now dismissive.
Sammy Councilman Jim, I mean John is the one who has jumped the shark. Don't you feel its time to get rid of him?
10:27
So what's your point. Should City Council hire Fleishman-Hillard to boost their visibility?
If they're pissed, they know, or find out. If not, they just go about their business.
Nobody's anywhere NEAR as pissed as the blog-minders here.
To these few, anyone who has different priorities for the city - usually based on who elected them in the first place - is a "clown."
So now the turnout is up to 15 percent . . . (whoops).
Oh, that's .15 percent to you CM Yawn!
11:57
To assume that is to assume everyone think like you.
That would be an error of (roughly speaking) 3.999999 million.
Most people have lives, and work, and hobbbies, and personal interests, and struggles, and they only get worked up over city issues when they have an overbearingly negative impact on those basic needs. The rest of the time, they just let the politicians do what they pay them to do, and hope for the best.
So, most people didn't think things were bad enough in L.A. to get out of line at the lottery ticket window, or cancel that blind date so they could vote.
1027 - that's not true. Wendy is one with whom I have some policy issue differences, but I don't see her as a clown. I'd say the same thing about Garcetti most of the time (though his Measure R and some of his handling of public comment is somewhat clownish).
We don't call them clowns because of their basic policy views but because many of them often act like clowns. And its not just us that does it.
Who's a bigger clown that Jack Weiss? That guy has some serious issues.
Tom LeBong is a clown but he's a big warm funny clown. Its clownish to put lights on a statue in a park no one will go to at night, BUT Tom is a fun guy. We like Tom.
And on a bad day/election cycle City Councilmembers get elected by thousands or tens of thousands of people.
On a good day, 12 people post here, and half of them are the other named hosts being anonymous.
Who's the real clown?
So, MS you're saying that all CJ's rants about "clowncil" are aimed at Jack Weiss and occasionally LaBong.
Not buying it.
Speaking of jumping the shark, now that the "John" doesn't have Lisa Sarno to kick around anymore in tirades about how neighborhood councils are being mistreated, is there really any point in his existence here?
a few observations...
Alvin and Councilman John need to be put out to pasture. Their time is over.
Mayor Sam may not get the number of readers compared to city council votes but he ain't spending 100s of thousands or even hundreds of cents. watching the figures on the front page he's getting probably 600-800 readers a day. Not bad.
It doesn't matter your party affiliation - Jack Weiss IS a clown.
Don't know Weiss, but he got 28,000 votes two years ago and 72 percent of the vote - more than just about all of the contested candidates combined, this time.
I think he may have a right to think he has something of a mandate to lead his district.
This democracy thing really seems to stick in the gullet of some of you self-appointed experts and pundits, don't it.
Maybe it's time for new rules. If a CM cannot get more votes than the total of all the N.C.'s votes within their CD's then the NC's get to vote for the CD in Council Chambers. That ought to inspire both sides of the table to increase turnout.
4:22
No sweat in CD14. Alvin Parra got more votes than all the NCs in the district did in their last election. combined, nearly twice as many.
That's Parra, the big LOSER yesterday.
By that measurement, Huizar breezed.
Who cares about the blogger's math? Nobody in this city voted and that is the worst thing that could happen to cities, local politics and democracy.
1.7 million registered voters and 150,000 of them came out to vote? That is a scary thought.
Obviously CD 12 turns out voters. I suppose because it is mostly a Republican district and for some reason, they do vote more steadily than Democrats. I didn't study it in depth, but I must assume that if the incumbent councilperson got 10,000 votes, it must be true. I believe he is the one who was caught sleeping and someone posted it here so he can't be an ass kickin councilman.
Maybe they came out for that hot board seat and then just voted for him because he was unopposed.
I wonder how the mayor feels about the low turnout and the fact that his candidates didn't overtake?
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