Sunday Morning Mimosa
Sensationalism at the Weekly! This Weekly article ("Delgadillo's War") on the demolition of an old dowager of an apartment building in Hollywood is very difficult to parse, and overreached quite a bit. It accuses Rocky Delgadillo's office of "quietly crafting policies" to make increasingly secretive development deals, and of "shutting out Garcetti’s staff on practices that might dramatically reshape the [Hollywood] area."
Those are no mean accusations; but here the evidence is flimsy. It wasn't exactly a group of eminent architectural historians who browbeat the Cultural Heritage Commission (CHC) into recommending historical status; it was---and imagine the most condescending voice of the most condescending westside realtor here---a neighbor group.
To start yelling "Delgadillo's War" when it turns out the "war" is all on the part of the hobbyist-cum-lobbyist group Hollywood Heritage---and the City Attorney's office has in truth but minimal involvement in the demolition process---a little sensational, don't you think? How can Delgadillo be at war for merely defending the City's practices here?
These tedious, hard-to-follow historic preservation debates---aren't they mostly frivlolous anyway, when you lay them next to schooling, poverty, homelessness? When I was at the LA Conservancy's Ambassador wake last year, I couldn't help but think: gee, why don't these wannabe-beautiful people (there was even a red carpet, and Diane Keaton had been co-opted for the evening) give have as much energy to solving our homeless problem---or even try public transit for a day---as they have spent trying to save this largely irredeemable eyesore?
To me, no group has the capacity to say "let them eat cake" more insouciantly, and no group throws more incongruent wrenches in the civic machine as persistently, as an historic preservationist group. The LA Conservancy's bad enough---so much effort, so little return---can you think of any major victories on commercial buildings this decade? But I guess this Hollywood group too has Weekly buy-in now, and thus can provide some unsuspecting scribes with some chilling quotes about civic "conspiracies." A shame.
Much more responsible treatment of a development issue that touches preservation, development, and civic time and money was the Downtown News' ENORMOUS editorial "New SRO Hotels are Well-Intentioned, but Treatment is More Important." Incorporating a new documentary with both buzz and legs---Pras Michael's Skid Row---the Downtown News concludes:
Which is correct; they won't, and everyone knows it. The CRA could also spend the same millions on bringing the homeless more beds and showers, or even on cinder-block units or even yurts for the homeless. It could get people out from sleeping under underpasses. Instead it will perpetuate what already exists: containment zone, and Depression-era-styled bottom-rung housing downtown.
Those are no mean accusations; but here the evidence is flimsy. It wasn't exactly a group of eminent architectural historians who browbeat the Cultural Heritage Commission (CHC) into recommending historical status; it was---and imagine the most condescending voice of the most condescending westside realtor here---a neighbor group.
To start yelling "Delgadillo's War" when it turns out the "war" is all on the part of the hobbyist-cum-lobbyist group Hollywood Heritage---and the City Attorney's office has in truth but minimal involvement in the demolition process---a little sensational, don't you think? How can Delgadillo be at war for merely defending the City's practices here?
° ° ° ° °
These tedious, hard-to-follow historic preservation debates---aren't they mostly frivlolous anyway, when you lay them next to schooling, poverty, homelessness? When I was at the LA Conservancy's Ambassador wake last year, I couldn't help but think: gee, why don't these wannabe-beautiful people (there was even a red carpet, and Diane Keaton had been co-opted for the evening) give have as much energy to solving our homeless problem---or even try public transit for a day---as they have spent trying to save this largely irredeemable eyesore?
To me, no group has the capacity to say "let them eat cake" more insouciantly, and no group throws more incongruent wrenches in the civic machine as persistently, as an historic preservationist group. The LA Conservancy's bad enough---so much effort, so little return---can you think of any major victories on commercial buildings this decade? But I guess this Hollywood group too has Weekly buy-in now, and thus can provide some unsuspecting scribes with some chilling quotes about civic "conspiracies." A shame.
° ° ° ° °
Much more responsible treatment of a development issue that touches preservation, development, and civic time and money was the Downtown News' ENORMOUS editorial "New SRO Hotels are Well-Intentioned, but Treatment is More Important." Incorporating a new documentary with both buzz and legs---Pras Michael's Skid Row---the Downtown News concludes:
Acquiring hotels feels powerful and assertive, as if government is finally going to make a big difference. Yet the new hotels, either left alone or shiny and rehabbed, will make almost no difference on the Row.
Which is correct; they won't, and everyone knows it. The CRA could also spend the same millions on bringing the homeless more beds and showers, or even on cinder-block units or even yurts for the homeless. It could get people out from sleeping under underpasses. Instead it will perpetuate what already exists: containment zone, and Depression-era-styled bottom-rung housing downtown.
Labels: rocky delgadillo, sunday morning mimosa
Posted by Joseph F. Mailander @ 9/09/2007 07:35:00 AM
34 Comments:
Joseph
Once again I agree with your assessment that containment as a policy sucks.
But you are way off on the dynamics of downtown .
These not-for profit developers, esp SRO Housing Corporation does not just do special needs housing , they develop low income affordable housing. SRO has set the standard in changing the way that type of housing is done. The were the first in skid row to build mixed use sro's. The Rivers Hotel on 7th and Central was the first to incorporate the model of efficiency units for the poor and on the bottom floor lofts for the poor artists , some coming from other hotels at SRO Housing Corporation.
Then came the Yankee Hotel on 7th and San Julian. It has underground parking and incorporates efficiency units with all of the amenities , small kitchenette and bathroom in the units . There are 22 market rate units which even you could qualify to move into if you so desired.
You and everyone else is judging the area based on when there wasn't an adaptive reuse ordinance and condo buildings and expensive lofts everywhere. Laws were not enforced and the residents were left to fend for themselves in the sro, even those who were to be taken by the not-for profits.
To use the past way that skid row was abandoned and on it's own as the means test to how SRO Housing Corporation would operate the Rossylyn Hotel is extremely uneducated and unscientific and based on Nimby Fears.
SRO and the CRA could come up with a new model of mixed use housing in the Rossylyn Hotel to even include condos in that building or apartments or lofts etc. Because SRO Housing Corporation is flexible in that area unlike skid row housing trust the other developer, this could be used as a way to evolve once again away from the older sro's to increase the new ways sro type housing is created.
I am sure sro would be amenable to workforce housing. But then again with many people who live in the building I live in now, one person who even works for Wolfgang Puck's and a hospital cafeteria ,a veteran, while he continues to get his resteraunt management degree from trade tech , we know SRO Housing Corporation does provide workforce housing.
Give this idea a chance . We have to see how the hotels there in the historic core would be treated differently and the designs respectively.
As far as the CRA and their cronies getting first pick at these developments. Sure. I would hate to see SRO used as a developer to create low income market rate rent controlled projects for their CRA Cronies.
oh yeah!!!
The person who wrote this editorial is so ignorant and contradicts themselves so many times.
this is what you ended with. The hotel that they are pissed off about is the Rossylyn. The Rossylyn is in the Hitoric Core and this is just way off base;
Acquiring hotels feels powerful and assertive, as if government is finally going to make a big difference. Yet the new hotels, either left alone or shiny and rehabbed, will make almost no difference on the Row.
The hotels they speak of are the hotels that the drug dealers have used as bases of operation. These hotels include the Rossylyn, the Alexandria , the HUntington ,Frontier, and the Biltmore and the king Eddy. So to say it wouldn't make any difference in the row is erroneous. the row is right across the street from these hotels . And the author now includes the historic core as the row , I wish the downtown news would make up it's mind on where the row is.
Skid row Housing Trust which operates the Pesrhing on 5th and Main either doesn't care that people run drug operations out in front of that hotel or didn't care in the past. SRO operates therir properties differenty, with security guards who not only watch the properties on the inside but keep those who would loiter in front of them from doing so.
Walk by the leonide on main street and observe where people are sitting agains the wall and along the sidewalk and you will see it is in front of the Sanborn , a skid rwo housing trust property. But in front of the leonide an SRO Housing Corporation Property and next to it, You won't see that happening. Why? Because SRO housing corporation has security guards.
dgarzila: The hotels they speak of are the hotels that the drug dealers have used as bases of operation. These hotels include the Rossylyn, the Alexandria , the HUntington ,Frontier, and the Biltmore and the king Eddy.
dgarzila, do some drug dealers live in those hotels as tenants?
yes. I am positive. All of the ones I mentioned
the alexandria in the past, since the alexandria is under new mangement by Amerland that is changing and as a matter of fact Amerland is in the process of a huge legal fight with a drug dealing tenant over eviction with LA CAN backing up the drug dealers.
another story for you.
When the brownstone was under escrow and then finally handed over to SRO Housing Corporation. SRO Housing had a big legal battle over a drug dealer who had knocked out the walls of 4 units to make a larger unit. HE would not leave and wanted relocation fees for all 4 units.
I lived next to the Brownstone when I lived at the GoldenWest right next to it when the Brownstone was under their old management. They were cooking so much meth or crack or whatever, the fumes were coming through my window and I would up in the emergency room.
Usually the hold outs are the drug dealers when it comes to relocation even after they qualified for the money. Sometimes they are so greedy they hold out for more money , but they always wind up losing. I don't know what the rules are now, but i know that when a non-profit takes a residential hotel they don't have to pay the full amount of relocation fees to the previous tenants. I am not sure but that may have changed.
Thanks, Dgarzila. Sounds like you've been there, know what you're talking about, emergency room and all. Wow.
Seems Joe just disses the development of these hotels without knowing anything about it because that clown zuma keeps railing against them, with two threads in the last 2 days, so Mayor Sam is trying to boost their crackpot theory that these deals and the CRA must be "shady." Using words like "front-end loaded" over and over, as though that meant anything. But your take on the SRO Housing Corp is very encouraging.
All this talk about hotels reminded me...
At 3 am a desk clerk at a hotel gets a cal from a drunk guy asking what time the bar opens. "It opens at noon," answers the clerk.
About an hour later, he gets a call from the same guy, sounding even more intoxicated. "What time does the bar open?" he asks.
"Same time as before sir - noon," replies the clerk.
Another hour passes and he calls again, plastered. "Whatjooo shay the bar opens at?
The clerk then answers, "It opens at noon, but if you can't wait, I can have room service send something up to you?"
"No! I don't want to get in, I want to get out".
Anonymous said...
Thanks, Dgarzila. Sounds like you've been there, know what you're talking about, emergency room and all. Wow.
Liqour stores as well...he knows the landmarks well.
RE: Seems Joe just disses the development of these hotels without knowing anything about it because that clown zuma keeps railing against them, with two threads in the last 2 days.
First of all, not to speak on Joe's behalf without running it past him, but I don't think he is basing his opinion BECAUSE any thread zuma posted. It's usually the other way around, if anything.
Secondly, I am not "against them". I am against the fraud, waste and abuse (corruption) that can occur when you start taking public money and hand it over to private non-profits under the current system of non-accountability and non-transparency.
The problem with all of these non-profit issues is they take a good idea and corrupt it all up until it has 0.00% chance of being able to succeed.
Thanks Zuma. Beware of Dogg. In truth, if you'd like to read something I wrote on the SROs downtown a year ago---here it is:
Downtown's bipolar housing policy
(Sorry it'll cost you, but that's the way it is at the fishwrap of record for articles over a year old). If anyone really needs the text, though, just email me at aguyinla@gmail.com.
As for DGarzila, he may sip Jan Perry's Kool-Aid from time to time, but he sure knows the SRO housing beat, and would be a great DowntownNews resource on eds like this. He and I differ on how to shut down the Containment Zone, but if you want floor-by-floor info on the SROs, Dan's your man.
Dan, I'm going to digest your big work here on this tread at the earliest opportunity. Thanks so much.
Joe, read the article in the Times Business section from August 20th, regarding what he did with the billboard companies, and you'll see that the Weekly is probably right. On that date, Clear Channel and CBS Outdoors, which together contributed about $500 MILLION to his campaign, announced that they were doubling the number of huge, digital billboards in our City of the Angels. An action which is protested by individuals, and groups like Coalition to Ban Billboard Blight.
How did this billboard proliferation come about? Well, about 9-12 months ago the City Council imposed levies on them to pay for assessments of billboards, to determine if they were putting up ones they didn't even pay for (of course), and in response to complaints that they were cutting down city trees that obstructed their eyesores. Neighbors also complained about some content.
The billboard companies sued, and our very own Rocky was told to negotiate a settlement. He allowed them to INCREASE their billboards not only in size, but nuisance value: they could now be as big as a house, digital/ electrical, and flash 24/7 on freeways, into homes, distracting drivers and driving residents to distraction. AND all the illegal billboards were given "amnesty." (Kind of with our human illegal, no?)
Now there is nothing the frustrated CM's and their staffs, who have to get earfuls from angry residents, can do about it. Rocky screwed the City Council by doing the OPPOSITE of what they'd directed him to do. In order to pander to his donors.
So, why is it hard to believe he's doing the same thing with developers who can't even get around the Councilmembers, because they are under more scrutiny?
Pretty clever, gotta admit: the City Attorney isn't the first guy you'd look to in wondering who's been bought off by developers.
When Rocky was named by a national lawyer's group recently as one of the Ten Worst Prosecutors in the country, with Gonzalez being First, the org noted that Rocky hasn't achieved the level of incompetence of Gonzalez, but "if given more of a national platform to do so, we have no doubt he would rise to that level."
3:47, there's plenty I'm sure on Delgadillo without having to invent things, as the Weekly seems anxious to do here. But first off, don't you think Delgadillo's relationship to the billboard biz is inherently complicated by the fact that the biz torpedoed Feuer against him in 2001? Rocky owes much to the billboard biz, so no surprises there. And it was Feuer who made the bigger mistake anyway, for trying to make billboards an issue in the middle of an election---when billboard companies themselves might have something politically effective to say about that.
+++++
But if you're looking to tell us that the Weekly is good on local stuff, then I might also refer you to this other one: Marc Cooper on KPFK problmes. What is this: 2007---or 1987?
The Weekly has lot of nerve publishing this one:
During her more than five-year tenure, Georgia has plunged the listener-run station into a dark hole, alienated its staff, pared down its already marginal audience, allowed its signal to decay, and filled the airtime with loonies, ranters and fringies.
Uh-huh. And wait until Jill Stewart has been at the Weekly for five years...
In fact, it's just like Jill to browbeat other media while letting all but the lowest-hanging political fruit off the hook.
And, speaking of the L.A. Weekly, there is an interesting article this week about Antonio's "spin" regarding his HISTORIC (or not??) school reform plan.
12:34PM said: ... zuma keeps railing against them, with two threads in the last 2 days, so Mayor Sam is trying to boost their crackpot theory that these deals and the CRA must be "shady."
********
12:34PM You are wrong about Zuma here. I read his long posts.
There was a big fight but a 4:2 vote on 8/16/2007 in favor of giving a loan to Amerland to rehab the Frontier hotel.
Zuma was either neutral with or on the side of the 3 or 4 commissioners, and against the 2 or 3 non-profit type, although Zuma found CRA in general are in serious trouble (because of the 2 or 3, the non-profits, the convoluted process, the corrupted systems, conflict of interest … ?)
The 2 non-profit type voted against giving the loan to Amerland, who according to Dgarzila is in the process of a huge legal fight with a drug dealing tenant over eviction. The 2 or 3 non-profit commissioners during the 8/16/2007 meeting sided with the tenants/speakers and wanted to listen more to them complaining about Amerland’s evictions. Zuma poked fun at the 2 or 3.
Hi dgarzila, thanks for affirming there are drug dealer tenants in those residential hotels and the additional info: since the alexandria is under new mangement by Amerland that is changing and as a matter of fact Amerland is in the process of a huge legal fight with a drug dealing tenant over eviction with LA CAN backing up the drug dealers.
Could you please clarify this part: “ ..... over eviction with LA CAN backing up the drug dealers”? Thanks.
4:03: Your first para makes no sense at all, but boy, what a bizarre attempt to pin the blame on Feuer for Rocky's screwing the City Council and more importantly, the City, with that deal. Of course Feuer opposed them, because the residents wanted him to, and they STILL DO AND ARE ANGRY AS HELL.
But hey, when you loathe someone like the Mayor and anyone HE knows for personal reasons of your own, you will of course justify the biggest loser in the history of L A prosecution at any level. You go after nickels and dimes elsewhere, your dogg zuma LOVES the Zev who screwed us out of mass transit but is now "heading the people's revolution" and is now opposed to -- oh, yeah, the Mayor, and coincidentally, now that HE controls MTA wants those billions a couple of decades too late.
But hey, you're right, I rest corrected. Rocky SHOULD have screwed the city in favor of the billboard companies, has every right to pander to them after getting at least half a million, because how DARE Feuer have been stupid enough to go after something so powerful, so USEFUL to the city, as the companies that makes people's lives hell in the interest of commerce.
No, trying to distract attention to your one and only favorite victim and anything he does, won't cut it.
I don't know or give a damn about the Mayor, but I do about the city, and biased "analyses" just piss me off.
At Oprah's bash for Obama, he touted his core themes of "optimism and accountability." Sounds just like Brewer's standard stump speech. Maybe Obama should run for LAUSD Supe instead, probably more suited to him.
They had every black celebrity there, and the only white "celebs" mentioned have been intellectual heavyweights like Christy Crawford the model, and Linda Evans -- who once famously said that China was a much better country than India because it's cleaner, and all that business about communist tyranny is a fair price to pay for progress.
She should be Obama's foreign policy advisor, or is she already?
This is what happens when you have "token" ethnics of any race, and they're held up as "rock stars" instead of going for substance. You'll all shoot me here, but I actually think our own brought-down -to-size "rock star" Mayor is more ready for the big show than Obama.
I have the recent report that was provided by the CRA about those tenants complaints. Some of the so called tenants at the hearing complaining weren't even tenants, and the independent investigator found that many of the complaints from the tenants at Amerland in the Alexandria were erroneous complaints.
What we do know, is that the night before before the CRA meeting on the 16th ,the pumps in the Alexandria Hotel mysteriously stopped working. These are the pumps that send water to the rooms all over the hotel.
RIght after the pumps stopped working ,Flyers from LA CAN also appeared on the doors of the tenants in the Alexandria.
What we do know for a fact, in skid row, is that LA CAN does not have many members who are not paid show up to city hall or public meetings and we also know that if the water had of not mysteriously turned off the evening before , many of the tenaants would have never shown up to the CRA meeting.
We also know that the same attorney LA CAN uses over the tenants right issues is the same attorney Alice Callaghan uses to fight the safe cities intitiative and other issues that make skid row a better place to live.
We also know that defending the tenants at the Alexandria Hotel and using that as an excuse to deny the 8 miiion to Amerland is just a pretext that ALice Callaghan is using to try and prevent Amerland from taking the Frontier Hotel.
Alice Callaghan has made it very clear that she wants those properties for the poor.
http://centralcitye.blogspot.com/2006/04/does-this-sound-like-someone-that.html
You see even if Amerland gives those tenants that were illegally evicted out of the Frontier Hotel. LA CAN and ALice Callghan would still be figting Amerland.
Alice Callahan is behind all of the containment policy from the 70's and you will know that LA CAN will do anything to dilatorily prevent a for -profit low income housing developer Like Amerland from acquring the hotel.
This is a battle to end the skid row as we know it. This is a battle to prevent ALice Callhan to spread skid row into the Historic Core once again. That used to be it. What I am starting to see is that Alice would clean up skid row , if she was to get the CRA to hand over all of the hotels over to her.
And this is something that my good friend mailander the bus riding linmousine liberal doesn't know.
LA CAN working with the VOA will put members who start getting paid into the ballington hotel which is one of the nicer SROS in skid row. They are actual apartments. Thus , their members are paid off.
Another thing you need to know. I can gurantee you that these not-for profits have done more shady evictions than anyone else.But try and get LA CAN to help you fight for tenant rights if you lived in Skid Row HOusing Trust Hotel or SRO it would never happen because LA Can's mission is to secure the large hotels all over downtown for Alic Callaghan.
This is why I never go to them for any tenant rights violations in my hotel.
Right now I am going to make it very plain that the Los Angeles HOusing department killed one of my neighbors who died as a heat casualty this past Sunday evening. Do you think LA CAN is going to help. NO because it also affects Skid Row HOusing Trust . Do you think they want all of their tenants to also get window air conditoners? Please.....
LA CAN uses shady tactics to get what they want for ALICE. They are shady shady shady.
I will share this with you later.
Once Amerland Aqcuires completley the Frontier, Basically contianment is over. ANd ALice Callghan has been checkmated.And with SRO HOusing Corporation taking the LArger hotels like the Rossylyn or the Huntington. Contianment is really over because containment is only within the borders that are skid row. The fat lady sings. This is why you have to not lump SRO in with other non profit developers.
Many of you think this is a gentrification fight downtown. It is a decentralization and regionalization of social services fight.
I am fighting for decentralization and regionalization. Amerland is the stake in the heart of the vampire . this is why we have to make sure they get the Frontier. and symbolically Alice Callagahn loses and containment is killed.
I also have a voicemail message after the hearing threatening me with violence from one of LA CAN's paid members. ANd I have to go to court tomorrow over someone who actually thretened my life.
If you think this Amerland issue is about keeping containment. It is far from it.
I beleive that the City and the CRA are so desperate to move on in the rest of downtown they would hand over the Biltmore and the KIng Edward over to Skid Row HOusing Trust and the hotels on main street over to SRO HOusing Corporation because they are more proactive nimby against the crime etc than even the market rate developers. It is their mission.
But you are right in one aspect. The CRA must not just aquire these hotels for the non-profits but also secure the funding to do it right also.
in alices own words:
Skid Row Housing Trust intentionally, when it was set up in the 80s,
purchased hotels along the border of the Row. The idea was that if we could
protect our borders, then it makes it less attractive to come in. The other group,
SRO Inc., basically bought in a very small concentrated area of the Row. They
were willing to say “Okay here is the Row, 5th and San Julian.” They did not
mind if they shrunk the Row down. They do own a few hotels outside the area.
They are prepared to give up the Row. Again, their politics are different. The
redevelopment agency people are on their board. They are a city group.194
Callahan’s combat plan is to try to keep the young professionals out until she has
secured enough property to make sure that Skid Row remains Skid Row. Callahan has her
eyes on the large hotels. “That’s why Main Street is so important,” she explains, “because it
has all these huge buildings. . . . If we could buy this one, the Cecil, almost six hundred
rooms, on Seventh and Main, then we would be okay. . . . I feel if we can get the Rossmore,[rossylyn}
then no one else will want to do the Frontier.”195
“If we can buy this one hotel I feel like we’ve check-mated this whole block,”
Callahan explains.196 “Because then, we own ten stories, and we move our most mentally ill
people into it and now nobody wants the others. And that’s the whole plan. And then again
once we secure the housing on the Row—so the poor can live here forever—then the service
is going to stay here, because that is what it is to service them. Then they can do anything
they want. But you always have to secure the property.”197
“The most important thing for us to do is to buy the housing on Skid Row,” Callahan
emphasizes. “I think it will take a decade or more because there is so much happening off
the Row that is beginning. And my hope is that, by the time they run out of stuff [off of Skid
Row but near by], we will own the buildings.” When she will have all the property she
needs, then there will be no problem gentrifying the area: “I don’t care if they do that on
Skid Row once we secure the housing. Then fine. Put all the wonderful building you want
on Skid Row. It is only an issue before we secure the real estate. That is all it is.”198 She
continues:
We want every building on the Row. And then we want to put up some
additional housing to house people. Every single affordable housing unit on Skid
Row has a waiting list. Every single one of those 45 hotels owned by a non-profit
has a waiting list. If we opened seven more hotels tomorrow, they would be fille
It's Cindy Crawford.
Let me clarify something I wrote in the above post. SRO would continue to clean up the area on the west side of Main Street. No one realy knows what skid row housing trust would do.
But with board members like ALice Callahan who fight the safe cities initiative. I can understand why the CRA , if it goes thorugh with the 50 million dollar deal to buy the hotels, they would allow the King Edward and the Biltmore to go to Skid Row Housing trust and SRO would take on the structures on the west side of downtown.
This is a battle that continues to heat up . We are approaching the finish line and even members of the community for regionalization and decentralization are being targeted by LA CAN for intimidation.
The media aired a story of Obama in SF and right there on stage behind him was LAURA CHICK. Obama had major players with big money and yes they were white. Don't start making this a race issue. There were even millionare Latinos. Hillary blew it having Antonio the lying cheat who had an affair for almost 2 years while his wife raised their kids alone and has more class in her pinky then he ever will. NO MIRTHALA RIDING WITH ANTONIO AT PARADE. What a bimbo allowing Antonio to hide her out. IF AV thinks everything is fine why hasn't he been seen with her at a public event?
7:35: "Don't start making this a race issue?" ALL you ever do is call the "midget Mayor" an illegal who ought to be deported, bla, bla, bla, and who gives a shit if he dumped a wife he couldn't stand, but a really pathetic individual like you? It's sad to see your obsession with him and Mirthala, and your raves for an ex-wife you don't know -- but who had ample reason to know what he was up to. If she put up with it so long, it was because as many have said, she liked the perks of being First Lady and the benefits it bestowed on their kids. She didn't "suddenly" discover anything.
You can't mention the Mayor without putting him on a list of "other" Hispanics you hate, but the fact that Oprah and every other black celebrity are endorsing a black candidate is a coincidence?
You're so miserable, you're either alone or living with someone you can't stand, so want to make a twisted virtue out of miserable fidelity to... misery. Who cares what someone like you thinks about anything.
By the way, what does Laura Chick have to do with anything? Didn't she also just get a scalding in this blog days ago, and aren't there more nicknames for her used here that are hardly flattering? Would her endorsement suddenly matter to you? And is she even endorsing him, or just getting PR wherever she can? And as for Obama, he's an idiot on foreign affairs, whatever his color.
Yeah, there are other white guys giving money to Obama, even Geffen and Spielberg -- but they've endorsed Hilary. Hedging their bets but picking their winner.
Don Garza is a bum who needs to get a job. He is a professional homeless person who lives off the government and claims to be a victim.
I would stay hidden in order to have an affair with Antonio Villaraigosa.
Don Garza is an activist who knows what he is talking about 99% of the time. Bum? Are you joking? Do people use that word still? It's 2007!
Is Don Garza having an affair with the Mayor? I thought he wanted to screw Jan Perry.
Don Garza is a professional victim.
Mr. M., next week, can you make sure there's more champagne in these mimosas?
ZUma Dog=---Go AWay==Get lost--scram!!!
are you an idiot? Cause no one wants you here!!! you are stupid and overwhelming this space--go away--stay away--be gone!!!
'NNNNOOOO to Zuma NO nO No to Zuma No NO No ZUma Dog--youa re jerk///////#1-- we don't want you. you and Walter are ruing ur space. We wazNt our Mayor Back.....return him and get lost!!!
Don Garza is a disabled veteran of the United States MArine Corps. He believes that the strong must defend the weak. He is receiving the care and the money he earned while doing his duty to his country.
Although Don Garza is sick and has proof, I have seen it, that he was exposed to low levels of nerve gas in the first gulf war and has head injuries that affect his breathing, he still gets out there and does what he can to make the world a better place.
I am grateful for Mr. Garza exposing Jaime Green, a sexual predator in the skid row area , preying on the homeless people around the missions. This has scared many sexual predators from preying on the community where he lives. I asked the local officials .
I am grateful for Mr. Garza and his concern for the weakest in society.
One day Mr. Garza sat with me and told me that it was because it is the duty of the strong to take care that the weak are not taken advantage of and if he doesn't do it no one else will.
He said he knew what it was like to be the strong , what it was like to kill and understands that those who know these things must make an effort to teach those around him to make sure that things don't get to the point that the ultimate in man's inhumanity to each other doesn't happen. Now he understands what it is like to be one of the weakest members in society and depend on those who are supposed to take care of him and found out that there are many who claim to care for him as only a way to use him as a cash cow.
Mr. Garza taught me that there are many ways people are predators of the weak and sick , including those who are not-for profits.
Thank you Mr. Garza for your service to your country and thank you for looking out for your neighbors in skid row.
Mr. Garza was awarded a combat action ribbon and served with a unit that won an award in combat that is equivalent to an individual earning a silver star. Mr. Garza's unit earned a Navy Unit Commendation in combat. He has the Soutwest Asia Service medal with three service stars and was recommended for the Navy Acheivment medal with combat v decoration for valor. I recommended him. I served next to him. He loved his fellow Marines and never wavered in combat, on post or at night. He always did his duty no matter how difficult , life threatening , or non-prestigious it was
Those in skid row should be proud of Mr. Garza . Mr. Garza is not afraid to stand up for the children , the elderly ,and the weak. It is his strong mind that makes him who he is. He stood up for those in his charge in the Corps.
Mr. Garza is not a professional victim. Mr. Jaime Green is a professional victim . Mr. Jaime Green is also going to jail soon.
I served with Mr. Garza as his First Sergeant during Operation Desert Storm. When Garza was out on post at night I could sleep. Garza was a Marine's marine.
We wanted to keep him in the corps, but because of his illness we had to let him go. We knew, the command , knew ,that because he was a person who didn't let things go, he would do well in society and help many otehrs. I ran across his blog and have monitored his writing and all I can say is that Garza is still a Marines Marine.
I was in Iraq last year when I first ran across his blog. His blog has kept me motivated and others that remember him. I have served three tours in iraq since 2003.
I donate to the Midnight Mission because of Garza ;Devil Dog Garzilla.
You know who I am Garza. I will give you a hint; red lane 5.
Stay motivated and don't pay no mind to those goldbrickers calling you a bum.
I am still in service. I can't sign off
Dgarzila, & 9:43 - Semper Fi.
An uncle of mine served under Puller in Korea (Chosin Resevoir).
To the person driven mad by Zuma: we all sympathize. But try to focus your gaze on something steady and sane, like an image of a white stallion racing in the wind, its mane flying as if on wings. Maybe it's Pegasus, maybe just an albino, maybe just a white horse. But as it races into the sky, it does indeed sprout wings, and you know: yes, it is Pegasus, all right. And who does it throw off its beautiful back? Why, a noisy miscreant in a winter hat and sunglasses and heavy shirt even though it's a glorious summer day. As that creatures crashes to the ground, the horse keeps soaring and soaring up to the pure light of the heavens and there you can now rest your weary brain, too. The evil is gone, never to rise again.
You're welcome.
Oh my gooodness!!!!
I know who you are.....
I never thought anything about being recommended for a navy achievement medal with the v device. I figure what mattered is if you got it. But it is in my srb along with all of those recommendations for promotion I never got. He he.... Can't pass the PFT you can't get promoted. But when it got bad I could barely wallk.
Plus the guys and gals now are doing way more than I ever did.
But thanks anyway devil dog.
I guess you never know who is reading this stuff?
With this illness I have . If I stayed awake longer than 2days my body starts to eat my nerves. I relapse.. I remember staying awake for three days straight and I never drank coffee or anything to help me do so. I so wanted to stay in long enough to be a master gunnery sergeant and field artillery chief.
Hey remember. I never could keep my mouth shut. But my section and platoon always had the best of everything . Remember when gunney told me I was crossing the line when I wanted the peanut butter and bananas that were left over after chow in the morning on okinawa not to all go to 2nd guns platton ? Glad you were there to set him straight. My section and the platoon we were with never had one person with hypothermia that week out in the jungle training..
echo 3 delta golf
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