Hotsheet for Thursday: Pseudology & PsyOps
Eastside to the WestsideI hear Mayor Villaraigosa is going around claiming to have reduced spending (presumably he’s referring to the elimination of 700+ planned jobs), despite the fact that spending this fiscal year is up 32% over FY 2004–05. This comes as little surprise; Villaraigosa lost all respect for our intelligence somewhere between Measures R and S. He knows that if Angelenos can be duped into extending councilmember term limits and levying an 8% phone tax on themselves, he can get away with anything.
You hear it from the policymakers. You see it repeated in the news and around the blogosphere: MTA proposes a half-cent sales tax increase to fund transit projects. To call this a word game is putting it lightly; in the theater of combat, it’s called PsyOps. A recent L.A. Times piece by Steve Hymon begins:
It may be only half a penny, but from the looks of things on Friday, an effort to raise sales taxes in Los Angeles County to pay for a slew of mass transit projects and road improvements will probably be a heated contest this fall.
Only half a penny. In addition to the other eight and one-quarter pennies—if the purchase price of the item in question is only $1.00. There’s a good reason guys like Hymon, Villaraigosa, and Yaroslavsky use half-cent, and not the accurate and honest half-percent—and no, it isn’t to conserve a syllable. I don’t know about you, but even when I support something, I feel dirty when it’s sold dishonestly.
City Council voted 10–2 yesterday urging the County Supervisors to reconsider their Tuesday vote blocking consolidation of the half-percent sales tax proposal into the November ballot. Unlikely allies Dennis Zine and Richard Alarcón stood against the motion, arguing that the Valley would not receive its fair share of new transit funding. Oddly, this is not Alarcón’s philosophy when it comes to, say, police protection.
Los Angeles County Supervisor Mike Antonovich responded to Mayor Villaraigosa with a well-articulated position against the half-percent MTA sales tax proposal. Ron Kaye has the full text. Money quote:
This current measure is steeped in a cynical political calculation that the November presidential election turnout, the tangible Countywide frustration with traffic problems and the desperation to do something would be enough to win a two-thirds majority, even if the proposed sales tax measure was against the best interests of the County voters.
My opposition to the sales tax proposal isn’t based on its inequities; after all, to complete pointless projects for the sole purpose of making things equitable would be even worse for taxpayers. My position is simple: it’s time for the folks in charge to develop some respect for their constituents. Here’s the lesson I hope Mayor Villaraigosa and City Council take away from this: when you ram your trash taxes, your gang tax, your phone tax, and your phony bond measures down our throats, eventually the important things don’t look worth paying for either.
Call it coincidence or a bow to pressure, but Councilmember Jack Weiss has announced October hearings to review the interpretation and implementation of Special Order 40. Dennis Zine is pushing to amend the 29-year-old police directive to include elements of “Jamiel’s Law.” A press conference and protest are scheduled this morning in front of Weiss’s Robertson Blvd. field office.
In other news today, Mayor Villaraigosa’s culinary faves have been published again (what, no foie gras this time?), a couple of political nerds are promoting Senator Dianne Feinstein for governor, and if Zev Yaroslavsky gets his way, you’ll start seeing calorie counts next to the menu items at your favorite eateries.
Labels: dennis zine, jack weiss, Jamiel's Law, mayor antonio villaraigosa, mike antonovich, Richard Alarcon, Ron Kaye, Senator Dianne Feinstein, zev yaroslavsky
Posted by solomon @ 8/07/2008 07:30:00 AM
11 Comments:
Detroit Mayor is jailed.
http://www.wxyz.com/content/video/stream.aspx
With a good District attorney how many of our politcians could that happen to?
....plus a hard-nose City Attorney to collaborate with, we would have to build a "political third tower" on Vignes Street.
Typical "Timesthink" from Steve Lopez.
When Judith Stein caught my column last Friday about an Atwater Village man who protested the city of L.A.’s proposed trash fee hike, she fired me a quick e-mail:
“The amount of his property taxes really knocked me out. He has had the fabulous good fortune all these years to be paying rock bottom prices for the privilege of living in a world-class city with needs to match. Let’s be reasonable -– his property taxes are a paltry $674.83. Talk about burying the lead -– what does he have to complain about?”
As I said in response to Stein, she makes an excellent point. Unfortunately, my editor and I had to cut the column nearly in half at the last minute because of space considerations, and we lost the part where I confronted Dennis Keene on that very subject. Across California, aren’t we being nickel-and-dimed by local and state taxes and fees precisely because Prop. 13 kept property taxes ridiculously low in some cases, draining government budgets?
Keene, a retired L.A. County building inspector, admitted he’s got a pretty good deal. But he also said it’s not his fault Prop. 13 was approved to prevent people from losing their houses due to soaring property taxes. Sure, he said, maybe 13 needs to be tweaked, and in particular he objects to the fact that commercial property owners got the same deal under Prop. 13. An adjustment there would raise billions.
But Keene’s major peeve wasn’t the cost of city fees and taxes on everything from his gas bill to his phone bill. He’s tired of politicians telling us we can have everything we want without pain, while running up deficits and borrowing like bandits. He was ticked off about L.A. Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa's going back on his promise to spend “every penny” of the last trash fee hike to hire more cops. And now here’s Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, who has borrowed enough to make Gray Davis look like a pauper, finally admitting despite his “no-new-taxes” pledge that he needs to hike the sales tax by a cent.
He’s a justifiably jaded man, Dennis Keene.
I just wish I had his property tax bill, because mine is more than 10 times as much, and like Judith Stein said in her email, people like me are paying for Keene’s “fabulous good fortune.”
Interesting that the Mayor hasn't said one word about the deputy killed in Cypress Park. He had a press conf. photo op at Ramon Garcia park on his Summer Night Lights gang program yet they have one in Cypress Park and Antonio should have had it there but didn't. He and that idiot Gang Czar should consider starting a gang park program to start at 5am cause sadly that's when the deputy was killed in Cypress Park.
http://donculo-rants.blogspot.com/2008/06/adios-mi-amigo-joe-mailander.html
8:19: In LA, DA Cooley should start with himself.
What kinds of money is he taking from the defense attorneys of the Mexican Mafiosos in Bell Gardens, Cudahy, etc. etc., to not get TOO close to them? To ask some questions to pretend to be keeping his campaign promises, but not close enough?
Why did he pull off a crack Asst. DA who was getting too close to busting an illegal trash recycling scam, where someone protected by someone close to Cooley was taking in millions from the recycling that the city was supposed to get?
Why did Cooley's office let out of prison this June, the husband in Baca's prison with a restraining order for trying to kill his wife, despite a promise to tell her when he was paroled -- and he promptly killed her?
Why did Cooley hide this "mistaken" and highly preventable murder until 2 days AFTER the election?
Why did Cooley's office let out Pedro Espinoza, after they'd had months to determine he was illegal, just because he said he was born in USA?
Why, instead of using his hundreds of investigators for these obligatory duties, does Cooley use them to dig dirt on and harass challengers, on any Democrats who challenge Republican friends of his, and to harass his own Asst. DA's, and others, like latest Challenger Asst. DA Steve Ipsen -- who is the elected head of the 1000- member Assoc. of Asst. DA's, whose members fear and loathe Cooley?
And why do highly paid investigators and attorneys drive around their boss, the highest paid public attorney in the country, as chauffeurs, so he can get drunk?
DA Cooley, investigate thyself.
Yeah, when it comes to getting WAY more than his region's share of money for cops, and deployment of cops, Alarcon and the rest have no problem with it -- no, they never get enough from "the evil westside." Westside homeowners would be taxed further for gang programs in Alarcon's area, not in their own.
Ditto for schools, with 3/4 LAUSD Latino kids of immigrants, anchor babies or illegals themselves, and 3/4 of LAUSD on "poverty assistance" programs like free lunches. (Which many kids throw away -- now, Marlene Kanter has them getting gourmet selections like whole wheat and salad bars, at our expense.) ALL of the schools built and renovated, the ESL programs and those sending kids who can't speak English to China, are for Latinos, NOT the taxpayers.
Now, there's ONE spending item where the westside might get a greater % of investment than its population (NOT its tax contribution, mind you, just population) and Alarcon the Marxist joins rightwing, old, fat white reactionary Antonovich and Molina in calling this "reverse Robin Hood." Yeah, right -- especially as the subway would be mostly for those in transit THRU the area, who now must take crowded buses or drive, congesting our roads. Much to their chagrin, WLA is a job magnet AND a transit corridor for those going to job magnets in Santa Monica and downtown, and they suffer from the Valley, mostly, driving through every road, Canyon and freeway.
The subway would also hit ALL the major tourist spots by connecting up to the existing Red/ Purple lines from Downtown/ Hollywood/ Universal -- that's a huge tourist draw, since visitors are confused by LA's roads and by its miserably truncated subway. Alarcon and Antonovich/Molina and the rest of the SF and SG Valleys benefit way more than they contribute, from the job and tourist engines of WLA.
What the westside/ mid-Wilshire/ Hollywood areas should do, is secede from the rest of the city and let Alarcon's Pacoima and Molina/ Romero's East LA, and Antonovich/ Knabe's exhurbia, form a "city" of extremes linked forever to each other.
What's your point at 8:40, Wet Spoot? That we should do away with Prop 13, so old people and others would struggle even more or lose their homes? It's not like we get services -- LAUSD forces precisely those who pay the most, the westside, into private schools; homeowners have to pay a lot for trash pick up, and will have to fix their own sidewalks; all the cops are deployed to East and SLA to the "barrios," as will the gang interventionists they're supposed to pay for via Hahn's parcel tax.
A bigger underlying issue: as the LA Times Editorial pointed out yesterday, LA is where all the poor live who work in Santa Monica, West Hollywood, Beverly Hills, Pasadena, Culver City, Malibu...
These "ritzy" boutique cities get business and retail taxes but won't build "affordable housing," sticking LA with costs of building housing for the poor and illegals, and for their education, welfare and healthcare. And for the traffic congestion as they drive through LA to work.
Stein may be jealous of Keene as one Angeleno homeowner paying more, but Keene's gripe is that he's not getting anything for his taxes -- add the problems of parents paying for private schools because taxes educate illegals, LA City buses and roads are congested by illegals driving to neighboring towns, and LAPD has to be deployed to where they live plus the black neighborhoods, Keene gets a lot less for his money than do all the neighboring "boutique' cities who benefit from illegals. Tax him more, he'll sell out and move -- to a town where we don't support the underclass for everyone's benefit.
9:10 - Maybe it's because Cypress Gardens has their OWN mayor!
Damn those illegals.
Yawn..
Well, look at the bright side. If it's a sales tax, all of those illegals will have to pay it because they still purchase things here. If it's a "trash" or "transportation" tax, then it falls on the homeowners.
When I was a renter, I voted for everything. Now that I'm a homeowner, I'm very careful.
USC Health Sciences Campus Community Partners and Friends -
I hope this e-mail finds you well. I am writing to inform you of changes that are occuring here at USC. As you may know, the University is in process of seeking a replacement for Carolyn Webb de Macias, who recently retired as Vice President of External Relations. In addition, the University is also seeking to replace Kay Song, who also retired after serving USC as Vice President of Civic and Community Relations. Dr. Song is currently serving as Senior Advisor to Mayor Villaraigosa. I was extremely fortunate to work and learn from both Kay and Carolyn.
Throughout this transition, I have been presented with an opportunity to transition into a newly created "Executive Director of Local Government Relations" position here at USC. I have accepted this offer and I am in the process of transitioning into this new position. My new role will be to represent the University in issues before the City and County of Los Angeles. It is also my understanding that this is the first time this type of position has been created at USC, so this is a great opportunity to do something from the very start, and create a new job and role from scratch.
A search for a new Outreach Director for the Health Sciences Campus will begin soon. In the meantime, I will continue to work with you all until a new director is named. In addition, I am also very happy (and sorry) to report that Guillermo Guereque, who has been with my office for the past five years, is also leaving USC. He recently completed his Dual Masters' Degree and has accepted a new position with the Toyota Corporation. His position will also be available soon.
I want to thank you all for the time we have spent working together for our community. My e-mail and voicemail will remain the same.
Hope to see you all soon.
David
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