Cindy's Double Dipping Stirs Controversy
On Friday we covered the hiring of former Assemblywoman Cindy Montanez to a high level consulting job with the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power, earning $150,000 a year despite the fact she serves in a one day a month post with the State Unemployment Insurance Appeals board, a position that pays $130,000 per year.In attempting to defend Montanez taking on the controversial consulting gig while retaining the other cushy post, DWP General Manager H. David Nahai (by the way what do we call him when we meet him? H? David? Dave? HDN?) didn't do himself any favors in terms of creating a better impression with the angry public when he told the LA Times, "The appeals board, as you may know, is an engagement that is only one day a month."
One of our readers encapsulated the anger around this "double dipping" of taxpayer money to earn CEO pay for political campaign coordinator like work best when they said:
"When Cindy bought into her deal with the Mayor and Alarcon (and Nunez, as well, it would appear, in order to get the state appointment for $130K per year), she gave up whatever claim she might previously have had to leadership and integrity. Now, she is little more than yet another leech benefiting from her private deals with public officials."
The Daily News was more to the point, opining in an editorial "Joining the ranks of Los Angeles' politicians is a little like joining the Mafia. Both take care of their own."
When a public servant like Nahai who is so clueless as to how this appears to the voters at the same time he's begging for rate increases it goes to question his judgment and fitness for the post. Time will tell if the outcry will be enough that Nahai will feel forced (or be forced by the Council or Mayor) to rescind Montanez's gig.
And of course if the rumors we've heard are true, Montanez's mentor and former boss, Councilman Richard Alarcon is counting the days until Councilwoman Wendy Greuel is successfully elected City Controller, thus opening up her Second District Council seat for him and allowing him to move Montanez into his current Seventh District seat hence achieving Alarcon's reported goal of electing yet another Latino to the Council.
Labels: Cindy Montanez, H. David Nahai, Richard Alarcon
Posted by Michael Higby @ 6/09/2008 03:00:00 AM
11 Comments:
Politically tone deaf and arrogant, Nahai may prove to be the worst DWP GM in decades. The Montanez appointment proves he thinks we're all idiots. And Laura Chick, who has been watching every time spent by the department since being elected controller - from Rose Parade floats, non-profit contributions and Green Power - is silent. Ask yourself why? Imagine if Montanez had been appointed when Hahn was mayor. City Hall critics, including the LA Times and Daily News, need to step back and connect the dots.
Sorry, it's "every dime spent."
Any viable candidates for CD 2, please raise your hand. Sunland-Tujunga and the rest of CD 2 have got to stay away from these self-serving revolving chair candidates
Hmmm, good looking and now rich, too.
She's becoming more attractive to me very day.
9:29 AM you need to get out of your government cubicle more often.. and the crack pipe down.
David Nahai is one of the Villaraigosa-selected people onboard at DWP. The mayor likes to act as if the city is a country unto itself and maybe he's finding some satisfaction in bringing national economy woes down to the city level for us all to enjoy. Nahai is on the Mayor's team and that is not good for the people of the City.
The sooner that Villaraigosa's connections are controlled, or, ideally, disconnected, the better off the city will be. The boss' arrogance merely trickled down to the others. It has been modeled and validated by the Mayor, and now it's a characteristic shared by the Villaraigosa links.
Cindy Montanez follows the tradition of Latinos who are rapidly climbing the political ladder and become shameless in their greed and idea of self-importance, all to the detriment of the voters who put them there. The idea of being apologetic for their conduct is foreign to them; it never crossed their mind, and instead they respond with defiance.
Montanez gets a hefty payday, supposedly and conceptually to put all the efforts and skill needed toward satisfying the job. Nahai said that the meetings for the one job are one day a month, so she should be able to handle the other task without a problem. Huh?
The idea for those appointments is supposed to be that there is a commitment to put in any time needed to do the work, not just show up and "punch in" on the time clock the meeting day, "earning" your pay. The Nahai view is that all the rest of the time is available for Montanez to handle the DWP task.
That's shows how things are wrong. The one-meeting-a-month appearance should not be the only task for pulling down the salary. If that is all the time needed to do the job, then that job is an over-budgeted item, and should be reviewed. If MORE time needs to be spent than only one day monthly for the job, the DWP job has to cut into the attention that taxpayers get and are entitled to get from each position for their dollar.
Pure greed, shamelessness and cronyism replace any idea of reasonableness, civic duty and maintenance of the public trust.
Talk about progress. The idea of Latinos having members of their own group represent them was a distant goal in the 60's. Now the fellow Latinos are in office in abundant supply, freely creating an embarrassment to the rest of us who may have supported them in the past with their own special code of morality.
All that has happened over the years was that they fine-tuned the art of political manipulation and corruption, doing so well that they don’t even a blush. One bold example is Fabian Nunez, still believing that he has an entitlement to this, his gluttonous appetite for self-indulgence.
So now we just have replaced the non-Latino politicians with Latinos to corrupt the system and create their own political machines, crushing any opposing Latinos with reform ideas, if there are any. So the choices tend to be joining a machine or you don't exist. (Kind of like how street gangs operate).
Just an opinion in CD-14
Now Cindy can afford more of those shopping trips to Santa Clarita.
You're all missing the fact that Nahai said she could hold down her current gig at $130K because the NEW one at DWP, at $150K, was only for ONE DAY A WEEK, and wouldn't take up enough time to "interfere" with her first job -- that Nunez got her.
So all this money would be only for p/t work. For almost $300K she'd be doing a lot less than City Council members, who basically work 24/7 for little more than her current p/t job.
It's the most corrupt Mexican Machine since Alatorre.
And her "good looking?" If that's the best the Mexicans can do, with that phony red hair of hers, yuck.
10:05 a.m. Well said!!!
The long and short of it is - we have the corruption of Mexico being duplicated here in L.A. by the anchor baby brigade!
They are pillaging and plundering our city...without as much as a blink! They have no conscience and no morals or ethics. They are pigs with earrings. They are third world peasants and no amount of stolen treasure will change that.
Their "constituents" are the millions of unwashed, third world masses that are being imported by Villar and exported by Calderon.
There must be some way to legally divest Senorita Montanez of her illegally gotten taxpayer treasure!
As for Nahai...what the hell are we going with an Iranian alien in our midst??? Is he even a citizen??? Where did Villar pick him up...in some belly dancing joint??? I guess he's doing a job Americans can't do!
They are all running this city as though it was their own private fiefdom...and this has to come to an end.
This is what happens when you 'let the dogs in'! Wake up and smell the burritos and the falafals!!!
It always comes down to you all being pissed off that white people or YOUR Latinos aren't the ones getting all these jobs anymore, doesn't it?!
Figures.
CM FOR CD2. NUFF SAID.
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