Mayor Sam's Hotsheet for Friday
More taxes coming. The Clowncil votes to approve the Mayor's phone tax increase to go on the February ballot.Oh no, I smell a big time settlement payout. Fired transportation chief Gloria Jeff is howlin' mad that Mayor V fired her and demands to be re-instated. Though Villaraigosa presumed that by replacing Jeff with another African American female - new chief Rita Robinson - he could head off charges of racism, the pastors are circling and the Mayor has been accused of playing "Negro musical chairs."
Former Sister City blogger turned Mayoral candidate Walter Moore is doing quite well in the fund raising stakes. Moore has raised over $60,000 on his road to raise $150,000 which will qualify him for matching campaign funds and get him into the Mayoral debates.
CurbedLA has an interesting piece about an idea to grade separate LaBrea Blvd. at Washington. This is an idea city engineers should explore and seek other potential candidates for elevation as one strategy to fight gridlock. As the article notes, Boston has figured out how to do it, take a look.
With major league shadiness in the City of Los Angeles, we don't cover enough the mostly corrupt small cities in Southeast Los Angeles. Some of the scandals brewing in these cities could give Tammany Hall a run for it's money. CityBeat has an article about State Senator Gil Cedillo's protege - Bell Gardens Councilman Mario Beltran - who has been accused of all kinds of shadiness when it comes to towing contracts in the city.
If you're interested in the latest in transit news, the MTA's Dorothy Peyton Gray Transportation Library and Archive's Los Angeles Transportation Headlines Blog lists each day's transit related headlines as well as extensive transit related links.
And finally, CurbedLA wants to know if you saw a couple banging on the pedestrian overpass Wednesday on the 101 at Balboa in the San Fernando Valley. Does anyone know where Mirthala was?
Posted by Mayor Sam @ 10/05/2007 12:06:00 AM
9 Comments:
A staffer from LADOT tells me that Jeff was mean and brusque with her underlings, and refused to accept their opinions. She was impolitic with the City Council, and probably Villar had enough of her.
What is happeing to Mayor Sam there are no stories ooops,, gossip about the midget mexican mayor sleeping with these women as well.
Idiot comments like this one posted on Curbed about the LaBrea/Washington grade separation illustrate why LA is fucked. People with good, practical ideas are outnumbered by morons:
"This stupid automobile flyover idea is exactly what is what's wrong with L.A. We should be making driving and parking more expensive and difficult, while at the same time expanding mass transit and making neighborhoods walkable so you don't even NEED a car. DUH!"
Actually its more like people with different, innovative ideas (which are usually quite succesfully applied in other cities) are outnumbered by special interests, dim bulb electeds & their brain addled staffers and a significant army of nitwit naddering nimbys.
NCs Invited to the Phone Tax Party
By Ken Draper
The Mayor wants to put a phone tax on the ballot in February. He hired a professional pollster to survey 750 LA residents to see if they were inclined to support his idea. That prompted one neighborhood council activist to quip: “That shows what the Mayor thinks about neighborhood councils and the Charter that created them. We’ve been replaced by a pollster.”
Apparently Councilman Creig Smith agreed. When the phone tax debate got to City Council last week, he told his colleagues that he thought the Mayor had made a “tragic mistake” in trying to rush the measure onto the ballot and bypassing neighborhood councils. It is the feeling of Smith, and some other Councilmembers, that to get the tax passed by voters, they need some ground-level support. He proposed an amendment that would require neighborhood council input before moving forward. Smith suggested that the Mayor’s own Budget Day event on October 13 might be a good place to start.
The city has been collecting tax on cell and land line phones for some time, but they are being sued from three different sources … on claiming that the IRS law that allowed the tax has been phased out. The tax produces $270 million for the city to help pay for cops, firemen and so on. Villaraigosa wants the public to agree at the ballot to keep the tax and spare the city the loss of that income and reduced services.
Some Councilmembers have questioned the ability to sell the tax idea to the voters. Smith thinks that that’s a good place for neighborhood councils to step in. If NCs understand it and support it, the argument goes, it could help at the ballot.
There are also those who think Smith, who is not fond of the tax in the first place, has ulterior motives. In any case, neighborhood councils could find themselves with a place at the phone tax table. Some believe they should have been invited to the discussion in the first place.
Smith and Zine ony use the N C's when it suits them, when they think they'll ratify a preconceived opinion they already have, otherwise, they ignore them. Janice Hahn is all for them, because her district is largely poor, ignorant and easy to sway with her public meetings and block parties and such -- the opposite of Rosendahl's and others' who have mostly wealthier homeowners who have always been organized and just use the N C as a way to get "leaders" from a bunch of HOA's together, organized behind an agenda that someone cobbles together and sells to the HOA's separately, then has these people help sell it to the N C, and make it look like "community opinion."
Wealthier HOA-type people use the N C's for their purposes, Smith/Zine use them when it suits them, Janice ditto because they're more malleable in her district, and most of the wealthier ones are dominated by skillful political operatives who are craftier than the paid CM and City deputies/ staffers themselves. The only way to see what the "people" think is to ask them directly, so the pollsters are in fact probably more reliable.
Good evening Ladies and Gentlemen (removes hat and bows low with flourish):
Sots, were any of you listening to John and Ken this afternoon? Right before the interview with the goat farmer, there was a tidbit about a certain black Lexsus SUV parked in the immediate area of a certain house in Hancock Park...did any of you catch that particular item?
We would like to point out that the same black Lexus SUV with paper plates was parked in front of a certain home now painted a different color in the area known as Mount Washington on and off for a few days prior to the lady of the house moving back in, if you will, where she now resides, savvy?
(Whispers) No wonder there was so much drywall out in the yard. I'd want no skeletons hiding in my closet until other arrangements could be made either!!
4:15p, I don't know about Zine, but you're way off the mark on Smith.
"Smith and Zine ony use the N C's when it suits them, when they think they'll ratify a preconceived opinion they already have, otherwise, they ignore them."
It's been my experience that Smith is more approachable, more findable, and more willing to offer a straight answer than other CM's. Am I a fan of Smith? Absolutely, because I used to attend his bi-monthly (every two months) service cabinet meetings held for NC leaders.
God damn you Jack Hoff. You just gave yourself away. I can narrow you down to 3 people. And I KNEW it.
I'm sure I know which one you are and you should be more careful if you aren't going to post with your real name.
Now things that you've said make all the sense in the world to me.
Post a Comment
Subscribe to Post Comments [Atom]
<< Home