Open Thread for Saturday: Judging the Judges
Every election cycle we're presented with long lists of judges we're ask to elect or confirm to various courts. It's safe to say that almost no one, myself included, knows anything about these judges or how to vote.Typically the local and/or state bar associations will rate potential judges based on their legal training, ability, temperament and experience, without regard to partisan affiliation or ideological stand.
A letter to CityWatch from the billboard wackos however thinks that a judge who followed the law but didn't help them reach their Utopian, dysfunctional dream of banning all billboards should not be returned to the bench.
Judges should be considered on ability not on their decisions in controversial matters. Judges are not politicians and we need them to be free to make decisions based on what they think is right and not what is popular or politically correct.
In the upcoming June 3 Primary Election, incumbent Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Ralph M. Dau at Office No.4 is running for re-election against attorney Sydnee Singer. Both candidates have been rated as qualified by the Los Angeles County Bar Association, and both have statements printed in the Official Sample Ballot. The following information may help you decide how to vote.
In 2007, a citizen’s group went to court in an attempt to stop a lawsuit settlement between the city of Los Angeles and several large billboard companies.
Among other things, this settlement allowed almost 900 conventional billboards to be converted to digital ones and grandfathered in an untold number of illegal billboards. Judge Dau ruled against the citizen's group, on the grounds that it could not show that its members were harmed in any way by terms of the lawsuit settlement, which in reality not only will have far-reaching effects on the city’s visual landscape, but was hammered out behind closed doors without any public notice or debate.
--Ted Wu, President
Coalition to Ban Billboard Blight, Inc.
Labels: billboards, judges
Posted by Michael Higby @ 5/31/2008 10:28:00 AM
4 Comments:
Just wanted to give a shout out for a dear friend Hilleri Grossman Merritt who is running for judge in district #72.
I've known Hilleri for about 10 years and there is no one I'd trust more to do what is right than her.
She's been a deputy DA for the past 14 years prosecuting sex crimes, gang murders, and over 120 other criminal cases.
Please remember to vote on Tuesday, there isn't much on the ballot, but vote anyway.
Good job, Ted Wu, thanks for pointing out that Ralph Dau is incapable of holding billboard companies to the letter of the law. Vote him OUT, vote for Singer.
With tasteless dolts like Higby and his homies Rocky, Reyes and Perry in charge of billboards, we'd be turned into a third-world, visually hideous land of ugliness in no time, and all our work to beautify our city would be for naught.
Plus allowing Rocky's backroom deal with the billboard company to take precendence over community plans, zoning AND the law, contrary to how the billboard issue is handled in every other major city, handsomely rewards them financially for going against the will of the communities and breaking the law. They owe us tens of millions in back fees, and continue to accrue fines of thousands of days in fines for not complying. We won't let Rocky and his benefactors win, just because they bought him off, and because the Higby's are provincials with no taste or mental acuity.
THANK YOU, TED WU!
NO on Judge John Torribio.
Opposes mass transit and abatement, in the vein of the obsolete ones who opposed Diamond Lanes in the 70's.
Good Info. Vote Dau out.
He just cares about big business and not quality of life.
Let's put on those digital billboards outside his home.
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