Villaraigosa's Annual Calligraphy Budget: $550,000
By Walter Moore, Candidate for Mayor of Los Angeles, MooreIsBetter.com.Mayor Villaraigosa does not know how hard you work for your money, and does not care. That's why his budget included a feng shui consultant for the elephant pen -- you know, the pen for the animals we're sending off to sanctuaries anyway -- and lessons for civil servants on sphincter control.
Well, today's Daily News has a terrific article by Kerry Cavanaugh with some additional items for the list. My personal "favorite" is $550,000 for calligraphers. Seriously. You are paying for nine employees to "decorate more than 28,000 resolutions, proclamations and commendations a year." Hey, here's an idea: buy an HP color printer for $50 and use the fancy fonts on your software.
Speaking of which, this is the 21st Century, right? Computers aren't exactly "new fangled" or rare anymore. So how about, instead of spending $6 million every single year to print and bind City reports -- you think anyone reads them anyway? -- we publish them digitally in PDF files? That would save $24 million over the course of one Mayoral term. How long does it take YOU to earn $24 million?
You will be relieved to know, however, that City Hall is not leaving it to cretins like you and me to decide what movies, plays and art are worth buying. Rather, highly trained civil servants will spend your tax dollars to make our culture better than we would: "This year, the city is budgeting $100,000 for the Latino and Pan African film festivals, $290,000 for artists in residence and $350,000 for festivities celebrating Asian Pacific Islander and other heritage months."
If you want to end this insanity, it's not enough just to shake your head. I tried that. It really doesn't work. Instead, you need to take action. In particular, you need to contribute to the Committee to Elect Walter Moore. We've raised over $10,000 so far. We need just $139,600 to get matching funds and a guaranteed spot in the TV debates -- that's far less than the City spends on calligraphers each year. Contribute today at MooreIsBetter.com.
Posted by Walter Moore @ 5/21/2007 06:53:00 AM
23 Comments:
Thank you Walter. What a bunch of losers spending money like water on such bullshit. I'm glad the media is beginning to report stuff like this. The people need to know. Here's some letters that show dispise for mayor.
Where he stands Re "Top officials join in rally" (May 18): It is nice to know where Mayor Villaraigosa stands. His actions Thursday show he clearly supports the illegal-alien community and its demands. It has become apparent he only views the citizens of Los Angeles as a large wallet to support his agenda. - Sharon Lewis West Hills
Re "Top officials join in rally" (May 18):
Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, who sees himself as an education guru, has an odd idea of teaching young people how to obey the law.
His mere appearance, let alone leadership at a pro-illegal immigration and against his own Police Department demonstration, turned Los Angeles on its head, and truly gave credence to our nickname of "La-La Land."
- Sandy Sand
West Hills
Who do you call now
Re "Top officials join in rally" (May 18): Well, well, I have seen it all now: The mayor protesting in the streets with illegal aliens against LAPD. The mayor is going to tear apart the LAPD. Who is going to protect us? Maybe the mayor can contract the gangs.
- Ronald Watson
Arleta
Wrong city
Re "Top officials join in rally" (May 18): Someone should remind Mayor Villaraigosa that he is the mayor of Los Angeles - not Mexico City. Shouldn't he be representing the interests of American citizens and legal immigrants instead of illegal immigrants?
- Al Angele
Sun Valley
Re "Top officials join in rally" (May 18): Interesting that this march, it was all American flags; they learned something from the last one May 1. All I can say is, God bless our policemen and -women. - Martha Ballardo La Crescenta
Hey, here's an idea: buy an HP color printer for $50 and use the fancy fonts on your software.
Actually I believe that would cost much more. The ink would be very expensive.
Walter, some advice....
People think it was the pay to play that dethroned Jim Hahn in the last Mayoral Election.....Truth be told....it was because in a city of artists ....he cut the arts funding...after he was elected what did V do? he made it easy to use city venues to make films at...
SO cutting the so called frivolous arts funding is not where you want to go...
In all fairness to the artists , when the Nazis took control it was the artists that were also persecuted... Art is the sword of the oppressed and the bastion against oppression....
Let's see which council members will vote against Villaraigosa's gang programs he wants to throw more money to. You figure if they haven't been audited yet Antonio wants to give $168 million more how stupid is that? Today's meeting will indeed be very interesting. How can Bitter Bernie who is chair of Budget Finance not say anyting about this waste?
How much for toilets?
Damn...my calligraphy budget is over a $750,000 a year...I need to hire some of those guys. They're cheap!
I got an award from the City. It looks like a printer to me. You mean I didn't get the expensive calligraphy? That really is wasteful to be spending that money on calligraphy.
I'm sure someone on this site would know where to get the info....
Is there a way to run a side-by-side comparison of th budgets for the three or five largest cities in the country so we can see where the money goes? Also, it would provide some insight as to what other cities spend money on so we can see if LA is off or not in its spending.
Just my .2
11:04
Its an interesting idea, but tax codes vary from state to state and some cities might have to spend a certain % of budget on something.
math lesson for the kiddies on the blog :
its .02
.2 is twenty cents.
I'm sure that was your 2cents worth u meant to imply.
and yeah, great idea, find the other top 4 or 5 corrupt cities to compare to, and everything will look just fine.
who cares what other cities are doing? does it makes sense here or not? those other cities are not paying your taxes for YOU.
d garza - thanks for sticking up for the artists of this world.
everyone has their favorite 'artist', so theres no arguing their importance.
BRAVO BRAVO BRAVO ZUMA. GREAT PUBLIC COMMENT. Garcetti tried to silence him but Zuma got a big round applause asking the Mayor to payback all the money he used for LAUSD takeover. Council sure like disecting every dept. except their own staffers. What a bunch of corrupt assholes!!
I wish a reporter would investigate and find out how many city cars EACH COUNCIL member has for them and each of their staff members. You figure there's 15 council plus their staff. How much is that and I haven't heard about it in budgetr.
Get government out of the arts!!!
Didn't the Mayor fundraise outside of the city budget for his school takeover attempt?
I believe so...but if not..Zuma should be able to show us where in the budget it came from.
That shady-loser, non-leader, un-representive (la city mayor) raised private money for his LAUSD takeover failure. HOWEVER, LAzy Times reported, and many pueblos confirmed to ZD, that the shameless, time and money waster, who has yet to achieve anything but failure, due to his own greed and ego will be approving/has approved a bunch of CITY projects for people who donated to his PRIVATE fund.
So maybe ZD will compare and contrast all the names who donated to his private school takeover failure, to the corrosponding city project that was approved.
Zuma
go ahead and compare the lists, you'll probably find a lot of duplicate names. Thats not illegal nor is it uncommon. What you have to prove, and you probably never will be able to, is that those developers donated to the school fund in return for approval of their projects, which also require council apporval. So until then, stop acting like some crazy lunatic, all you are doing is displaying your dislike for the mayor.
ok Walter, here's another speedhump in your immigration platform re Special Order 40.
Federal judge says only the feds can determine legal status.
so everyone else back the hell off.
but here's the best part of the ruling
".....however, such frustration, no matter how great, cannot serve as a basis to pass an ordinance that conflicts with federal law."
looks like we got the Venice Boardwalk frustration.
they too passed an illegal ordinance.
our court date next is Thursday May 24. gotta say we're looking good, if we're suing against a law that prohibits selling T shirts at Venice Beach boardwalk, the ultimate quintessential free speech forum.
These guys won against landlords renting to illegals ordinance.
so Walter, regardless of your opinions on the matter, Bratton got it right on this one.
I hope you don't become just like the current mayor, trying to pass all sorts of unconstitutional shadiness on the pueblos.
Matt --
Here's a quickie class in the Supremacy Clause of the U.S. Constitution:
Congress has passed an extensive set of laws (not enforced by the President) regarding immigration. By doing so, courts have ruled, Congress has shown an intention to "occupy the field" of immigration law. That means states and cities cannot pass their OWN laws on immigration.
If you read my platform, you will see I have never advocated passing state or city laws to regulate immigration. Rather, I favor enforcing existing federal law, which is not only legal, but is officially authorized through agreements with ICE pursuant to statute.
So federal law is no impediment to the repeal of Special Order 40.
There, I just saved you about nine hours of law school. Send your tuition to me via MooreIsBetter.com.
ok, that said, we then get to the dual problems of :
1. bogging down the 'system' with detaining, prosecuting and housing all these 'illegals', when the system is already choked, jails are full, and you lament the lack of police officers.
2. alienating the minority communities who then go underground to protect 'their own' which then creates a culture of fear and intimidation, and stops these immigrants from becoming witnesses in serious crimes because they are afraid of deportation. If an 8 yr old girl gets abducted from her neighborhood, and an alien resident witnesses the act, then what? oh, its not ur daughter so who cares?
Matt, here's another nail in your open-borders coffin:
"O.C. Grand Jury Recommends Checking Immigration Status
(Santa Ana, CA) Large Orange County cities such as Anaheim and Santa Ana should be checking the immigration status of their inmates. An Orange County Grand Jury report made that recommendation yesterday. The report says the cities should have their officers trained by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or have the Orange County Sheriff's Department handle the task. The "Los Angeles Times" reports the recommendation is expected to heighten the debate about the role cops play in immigration matters. Not all departments are on board with the idea. Anaheim Police Chief John Welter said it's not their job to make the checks. Other departments said checking the immigration status would be duplicating work done at the county jail. Since Orange County Sheriff's began checking immigration status of inmates, the number of inmates detained for immigration violations has nearly doubled each month."
If Orange County can do it, according to a Grand Jury, then why the #&%* can't we?
Nah, ZD displays more than anger; he displays sheer ignorance.
He spends all his time making up pejorative names for people, including himself, because he cannot stand himself or the fact that they are doers and he is nothing but a whiner.
Sure we are all prospering here in LA, but not poor victim ZD.
The way he looks, acts and blogs tell the full story; he calls everyone else shady and losers, but he is the biggest Mother of all Losers.
Actually, there is a lot of truth to the previous post.
Psychologists tell us that calling people names is a compensation for feelings of inadaquacy in the name caller; usually the very names used by the caller are most often the ones he is afraid of being applied to himself.
So the frequent use of the term "crybaby defeated loser" reflects the caller's insecurity about feeling just like that.
So, if the shoe fits...
There is a bumper sticker popular with quilters that reads, "The person who dies with the most fabric wins".
Some one needs to tell mayor that the person who spends the most money is not the most important or powerful.
The rest of us stop spending when we are out of money. I live in an area of LA suffering severely from lack of basic city services that could be paid for if they cared enough to budget for it... like the rest of us do.
Imagine being so narcissistic.
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