Villaraigosa's Fuzzy Math
By Walter Moore, Candidate for Mayor of L.A.In April 2006, Mayor Villaraigosa said, in his "State of the City" address, that he would hire 1000 new police officers. That was "new," not "additional." To make his pledge sound more significant, he included "new" officers who would simply replace departing officers, i.e., attrition.
Today, he staged yet another photo-op to announce he now plans to hire 780 "new" officers, which, according to the L.A. Times, works out to "a net gain after attrition of more than 260 cops." The timetable? End of his first -- and, if I get my way, last -- term as Mayor, in July 2009.
We currently have 9493 officers -- less than 9500. Let's keep track of how many ADDITIONAL police he actually hires with the City's $6.7 billion annual budget, shall we? It's not "new" that counts. It's "additional."
And if he can't provide police protection for taxpayers, how about giving people in high-crime areas vouchers for private security services? A Brink's "armed response" is better than no response at all, isn't it?
Finally, yes, "fuzzy math" was an intentional pun. Guilty as charged.
Posted by Walter Moore @ 3/29/2007 08:26:00 PM
16 Comments:
Good evening Walter,
Did you notice the "PRESS RELEASE" in the LA ANTONIA TIMES ?
While the math is indeed fuzzy as Walter notes, the mayor's mission is nevertheless accomplished; he will have a nice headline for those who even bother to skim a newspaper or watch the part of the nightly news exhausted after a killer commute. Onto the next photo-op and problem to "solve."
At least MAV gets the Times to run his releases. Poor Walt's stuck in blogland, presumably where he'll stay.
the police force is also getting 'older' as the deferred retirements increase, that also helps fudge the numbers.
but I said it last september, nobody wants to be a cop, even if they do have the money for them. recruitment is non existent, its simple, theres just not enough candidates, thats why Bratton came up with the drug history waiver that Bernie Parks objected to.
I'll put up the video of what I said at the police commission.
Actually, I've spoken to police officers and asked them why there's still a shortfall in recruitment, and they tell me LAPD offers competitive salaries, BUT other departments offer better benefits. The solution, therefore, is simple: offer terms at least as good as other departments do.
But for an L.A. mayor to figure that out, he'd actually have to treat his job like, you know, a job -- not an endless vacation punctuated by photo-ops.
Red spot -- I did indeed.
Can you imagine how it's going to read when Broad buys the paper? For just $500 million cash, he can ensure the few remaining voters who pay attention never get access to the ongoing redistribution of wealth from the middle class to special interests. It's a bargain, from his perspective; he'll make that back in a year from tax revenues alone!
public comment video from the police commission
I'm really not so sure its the 'benefits' that make the difference....more likely the opposite: the stigma, the disadvantages, the public disdain...
and believe me, I'm just going off the public comment I just watched.
Many police are good ethical people. so its a tough call, 1000 additional police, unless you pay a lot, then they'll come...then they can also afford a condo to live in....
and a Segway
Yes, and others might have to stop treating their lives like endless stints of un- or under-employment punctuated by self-indulgent blogging...
Matt is a moron. The reason why LAPD can't recruit is when you have a racist prez of the police commission, John Mack who just 2 yrs ago was protesting against LAPD with the likes of Naji Ali now is making decisions on officers careers and hurting the dept. who wants to join LAPD? When you have a Mayor who supports illegals who many are gang bangers and AV is an ACLU guy they won't come. When you have clowncil members who don't support officers and never speak out for them, they won't come. When you have Bitter Bernie who is still pissed no one wanted him as Chief for a 2nd term and blasts LAPD whenever he can, plus because of him LAPD has a consent decree which ties officers' hands to do their job, they won't come. Then you have all other cities around LA who offer more pay, more support, less bullshit, they won't come. Although the number is 9,000 that's not what we have on the streets patrolling. People would be scared shitless if they knew the truth of just how few patrols we have in this city. Every move an officer makes is torn apart by the media, politicians, South LA so I don't blame them for not wanting to join LAPD. AV, council, police commission are all responsible for the low recruitment.
6.42 what bullshit. the consent decree was produced BECAUSE cops were NOT doing their job properly. it was abuse and corruption, and Bernie was in there up to his eyeballs.
so you're telling me that a young guy who wants to be a cop, changes his mind because he knows John Mack, Bernie Parks, and council? hahahaha thats insane.
those three might be why police LEAVE after being IN the force. but its preposterous to think that recruits don't join because of your reasons. they never even heard of these guys before they join the force. either you want to be a cop or you don't, and I say Majority DON'T. simple as that.
"AV, council, police commission are all responsible for the low recruitment."
hahaha. that's the funniest thing I heard all week.
LAPD's bad reputation is responsible. buck stops there. sorry.
And another thing: Hahn -- the mayor, not the Council Member -- sought 10,000 police years ago. I believe Villaraigosa was one of the 11 votes overriding Hahn's veto of a budget that denied Hahn the funding he requested for that purpose.
Put another way: Villaraigosa has held office in City Hall since July 2003, when he became a City Council Member (after promising not to run for Mayor during his term). In April 2006, he announced he would hire 1000 new officers. Now, in March 2007, he's announcing he's going to hire 780, and have 10,000 officers total.
Where are the reporters in this town to ask him why he's discovering this issue again now, why he didn't take action earlier? But no, we live in the city of "press release journalists." Lazy lazy lazy!
Did you read the rick orlov press release article on this? He just strung a few quotes and stats together, didn't question anything, and it looks like it took him about 10 minutes to "write" this (or reword the press release). WEAK, WEAK, WEAK.
8:19
Thank you Walter. I've said this throughout the 2005 Election and since then about how full of crap Mayor Villaraigosa is.
I believe it was Parks (Bitter former Police Chief), Villaraigosa (ACLU lover), Weiss (Who wants to be City Attorney) and Padilla (wanted to kiss Antonio's ring because he was going to win election) at the time who led the effort to veto Hahn's request.
That is why I voted for Hahn, he wasn't the best candidate but he was sure as hell was better than those assholes.
And I'll add when this veto went through was during the heat of the Mayoral election. Had Hahn got his request, he would have won by 2-4% of the vote.
This was after the failed County, Measure A that would have raised the sales tax by 0.5 % where the City of LA supported the measure with close to 70%, the majority of them in CD8, CD7 and CD14. I ask, who was the city clowncilman at the time?
In addition at the time, the news media skewed the report to make it sound like Antonio was fighting for taxpayers rather than report those exact elements.
Plus, Hahn tried for the same thing in 2003. The City Council wanted to spend the money on those extremely helpful "programs" to keep "kids" out of trouble in the first place. Yeah, that worked out just great....
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