2005 meet 2009 in the political world of "Ace"
If one cups his ears in the direction of the local political past around 2005, most would surely hear the echos of the "Big O" imploring us to re-elect "Mr. Persona" to another four dull years overseeing Spring Street from some boring third floor office.Others will surely remember the columns of disinformation originating from the "GRAYING COUGAR IN HEAT FOR VILLAR ON SPRING STREET" who would know no journalistic boundary or fact checks in accepting Ace/Parke's (with Mike driving the car) dirty missives about James Hahn as gospel, as they flung themselves on the new political flavor of the moment, one Antonio Villaraigosa.
Indeed for some fleeting moment in 2005, many including myself did buy into the Ace/Parke (with Mike behind the wheel), created facade that the former hill-sliding homie from "Northern Boyle Heights" would unite us in his dreams of a better "CIUDAD DE LOS ANGELES".
Now four years later, Ace minus Parke (with Mike nearby in the car), are resorting to the same political comic book of kid-like antics (the Rat), in Villar's quest to seat the "westside political guy", Jack Weiss as City Attorney.
But what Ace did not count on when he undertook this latest effort for the Villar Machine, is a city populance who has grown wary of backing any person or initiative from the 11/100% Mayor.
The defeat of Prop B highlighted the brewing backlash at City Hall. Mix in the likes of IBEW, Nahai, Latham & Watkins, Home Depot, Billboards, Density, Jackie Autry, and marches for law breakers, City Hall has become a "superfund site of toxic political waste".
But with Ace and his cronies fixated on their efforts to demonize Carmen Trutanich as a rat, lets take a moment to highlight the some rats that Ace and Villar know well and how they have benefited during the "Reign of Villar".
The names are familiar and the numbers speak volumes.......
Ace, remember Steve Sugerman??
Q2 2007
Sugerman Communications Group
Autry National Center Los Angeles, CA 90027
Autry National Center Improvement Project
$10,000.00
Q3 2007
Sugerman Communications Group
Autry National Center Los Angeles, CA 90027
Autry National Center Improvement Project
$18,061.80
Q3 2007
Sugerman Communications Group
Playa Vista Los Angeles, CA 90094
Village CEQA Lawsuit
$0.00
Q4 2007
Sugerman Communications Group
Autry National Center Los Angeles, CA 90027
Autry National Center Improvement Project
$18,000.00
Q4 2007
Sugerman Communications Group
Playa Vista Los Angeles, CA 90094
City Audit Review, Village CEQA Lawsuit
$30,000.00
Q1 2008
Sugerman Communications Group
Autry National Center Los Angeles, CA 90027
Autry National Center Improvement Project
$25,531.82
Q1 2008
Sugerman Communications Group
Playa Vista PLAYA VISTA, CA 90094
City Audit Review, Village CEQA Lawsuit
$27,744.35
Q2 2008
Sugerman Communications Group
Autry National Center Los Angeles, CA 90027
Autry National Center Improvement Project
$15,827.19
Q2 2008
Sugerman Communications Group
Playa Vista PLAYA VISTA, CA 90094
Village Supplemental EIR
$17,040.14
Q3 2008
Sugerman Communications Group
Autry National Center Los Angeles, CA 90027
Autry National Center Improvement Project
$17,000.00
Q3 2008
Sugerman Communications Group
Playa Vista PLAYA VISTA, CA 90094
Village Supplemental EIR
$16,250.00
Q4 2008
Sugerman Communications Group
Autry National Center Los Angeles, CA 90027
Autry National Center Improvement Project
$26,000.00
Q4 2008
Sugerman Communications Group
Playa Vista PLAYA VISTA, CA 90094
Village Supplemental EIR
$17,500.00
Q1 2009
Sugerman Communications Group
Autry National Center Los Angeles, CA 90027
Autry National Center Improvement Project
$15,000.00
Q1 2009
Sugerman Communications Group
Playa Vista PLAYA VISTA, CA 90094
Village Supplemental EIR
$9,000.00
Total Payments Received from Clients :
$262,955.30 (this total since 2007)
.....and someone close to Villar, Richard Alatorre.
Q1 2009
Richard Alatorre
Advanced Development & Investment Inc Los Angeles, CA 90042
Housing Development
$30,000.00
Q1 2009
Richard Alatorre
Mike Roos & Company on behalf of Bell Cab Hawthorne, CA 90250
To maintain & improve relationship with the City.
$5,000.00
Q1 2009
Richard Alatorre
Mike Roos & Company on behalf of URS Construction Santa Ana, CA 92705
on matters relating to the awards of contracts for URS Construction's services.
$2,500.00
Q1 2009
Richard Alatorre
Mike Roos & Company on behalf of Transwestern Beverly Hills, CA 90210
To clarify the definition of residential hotels and its impact on the Cecil Hotel.
$15,000.00
Q1 2009
Richard Alatorre
Mike Roos and Company on behalf of Competitorgroup San Diego, CA 92121
To try to interest the city to issue a request for proposals for a triathlon for the City of Los Angeles.
$5,000.00
Q1 2009
Richard Alatorre
Mike Roos on behalf of Binn and Partners, LLC d/b/a/ XpresSpa New York, NY 10155
To get concession at LAX when requests for proposals are issued.
$0.00
Q1 2009
Richard Alatorre
Mike Roos & Company on behalf of Motion Picture Officers Association, Inc. Los Angeles, CA 90036
To enable the retired police officers to work as a security and traffic control for motion picture and commercial productions outside of the studio.
$2,500.00
Q1 2009
Richard Alatorre
Mike Roos & Company on behalf of SSP America, Inc. Lansdowne, VA 20176
To obtain food and beverage concessions contract between LAWA and SSP.
$7,500.00
Q1 2009
Richard Alatorre
California Cartage Company Long Beach, CA 90807
to continue the company's tenancy at Los Angeles Harbor.
$12,000.00
Q1 2009
Richard Alatorre
I Love L.A. Gardena, CA 90249
To help acquire concessions contract
$15,000.00
Q1 2009
Richard Alatorre
Creative Environments, Inc. Los Angeles, CA 90031
Entitlements with the City.
$10,000.00
Total Payments Received from Clients :
$473,250.00 (This total since 2007)
The names and numbers above, along with their effect on the current ethical environment at City Hall are cause enough to elect someone who would control the special interest rats that scamper through the third and fourth floor on a daily basis.
Thus lets hope the voters help to "pop the rat facade" of Ace and send a message about the need to rid City Hall of needless political rats starting with Jack Weiss.
Labels: ace smith, carmen trutanich, jack weiss, LA Times, mayor antonio villaraigosa, Richard Alatorre, Steve Sugerman
Posted by Red Spot in CD 14 @ 5/01/2009 10:00:00 AM
18 Comments:
Another BO-RING post from Red Spot.
And a space-waster, too. Very unfair to the other contributors to the blog.
BO-RING!
More like RING, RING, on your computer.
Missed ya, Spot.
thanks for the kind words Petra.
This posting has all the brilliance and content of one posted by Zooma Dawg.
I mean, how do you really feel, Red?
And here I always thought a red spot was something the girls look for when they are afraid they are preggers...
Red Spot - which is it?
Are you say Ace had something to do with companies hiring Steve Sugarman to lobby?
And i mean its all publicly disclosed which is the ethical thing to do -- so you are upset that private companies hire lobbyist and then publicly disclose them?
I think you are swinging at air here.
The less you people have to say the longer it takes you to say it.
You miss the BIG news today: The Old gray hag features an opinion by noted legal scholar, head of U C Irvine School of Law, respected as one of the best legal minds by left and right, Irwin Chemerinsky.
He says in so many words that Trutanich has no legal grounds for hiding his client list. And that when pressed by Weiss to show what legal codes he's claiming would make it "illegal" to do that, Trutanich just distorted something and just plain MADE THINGS UP out of thin air. While sneering at Weiss that he's "teach him the law."
Chemerinsky adds that hiding his client list and financial exposure could cost of many millions in outside legal fees, just like Weiss has been saying. Trutanich does this to claim he's an "environmental lawyer" when he's done the opposite for decades among other shifty reasons.
Chemerinsky concludes that based on his actions and behavior Trutanich is "unsuited to this important job." EXACTLY RIGHT.
As for the rat thing, of course Spot would buy Trutanich's pathetic spin. A sorry excuse for running from debates now that his lies, fraud and legal ignorance are being exposed.
The rat belongs to a painter's union whose strike he helped break and is a universal symbol of union-busting. When they appeared on their own in front of a splashy Trutanich fundraiser at Universal, he and the guests made fun of them and said they were "spoiling things." This Mr. "My father was a cannery worker so I'm the worker's chhoice bla-bla." Maybe just one reason the AFL-CIO is weighting in big-time for Weiss.
Chemerinsky is not a respected voice on the right, I can tell you that for sure; he is a knee jerk liberal mouthpiecew for the ACLU et al. Where does anyone get off saying that he is respected on the right?
I'd like to know who supports him from the right side of the spectrum. Name names or clam up.
Chemerinsky's being named head of UC Irvine Law school was opposed by some right-wingers embarked on a smear campaign that put political party over legal acuity, but they had to back down looking ridiculous after scholars from the left AND right jumped to Chemerinsky's support. Do your own research.
But it's easier to try to smear him to hope to discredit what he says, a Trutanich hallmark. Won't work: will just make Trutanich look even more the shady, lying, smug and utterly ignorant two-bit small-time "fixer" that he is.
Anyone who's endorsed him and attacked Weiss for saying the same things Chemerinsky does must feel less than 2" small and want to hide. If they don't start acting with integrity now, they'll prove themselves the politically-biased hacks they are.
(Baca, are you listening? You owe Weiss a HUGE public apology. Shows why he shouldn't have been meddling in the first place. An endorsement is one thing, but for him to give his uninformed legal opinion and actively try to stop Weiss from telling the truth is VERY WRONG.)
OK 2:18pm.
In a LA Times article dated Sept 13th 2007 this was quoted about Erwin from the right:
Douglas W. Kmiec, a prominent conservative constitutional law professor at Pepperdine Law School in Malibu, called the development "a tremendous setback for UC Irvine. It is a profound mistake in my judgment to have obtained the services of one of the most respected, most talented teachers of the Constitution in the United States..."
Good post Red...
Kmiec kay be a conservative consitutional scholar, but he is an academic egghead and they all stick together using the first amendment as a banner.
No conservative political person thinks Chemerinsky is repected. He screwed up the LA City Charter and he never should have been named Dean in Irvine. They fired him because they feared he be too much of an activist, but he hasn't stopped, has he? His latest is Exhibit "A".
Now he is trying to gain a name by having an "all star class" for the first class to graduate Irvine Law School. How's he doing it?
Well, simple, he is giving full scholarships to every member of the first graduating class.
Donald Bren must be wigging out watching his money being spent by the lib to grow a whole new crop of ACLU lawyers.
When this country goes down, Obama can't take all the credit; folks like Chemerinsky and others in Academia deserve a huge part of the blame as well.
That's horrible! People from the left and right joining together to support and defend the First Amendment!
This country is going to hell.
Some thouhts on Chemerinsky's editorial piece. (The Los Angeles Times website limits comments to 650 "characters" and would not let me post most of my thoughts.
I do know who Jack Weiss has MISrepresented over the past 8 years: his Council District 5 constituents and the residents of the City of Los Angeles.
After 8 years as a councilmember, can Jack Weiss point to one significant achievement for which he was primarily responsible while a councilmember? Based on a recent television attack advertisement against Trutanich, one suspects that the answer is "no." That ad contains nothing positive concerning Weiss--only allegedly negative comments against Trutanich's clients.
I may not care for some of Trutanich's clients. However, Trutanich apparently represents his clients well.
How well does has Weiss represented his clients, i.e. his CD5 constituents and City residents in general? Many would say extremely poorly. The litany of the Weiss missteps--including ethical violations for which he and/or his campaign operations have been fined--is considerable.
When compiling a list of Weiss lowpoints, the difficulty is not enumerating them, but deciding when to stop.
When Weiss first ran for the District 5 Councilmember position in 2001, his campaign received thousands of dollars in laundered campaign funds from Casden Properties. The Weiss campaing also received matching funds from the City of Los Angeles resulting from these illegal campaign contributions. Eight years later, Weiss has yet to reimburse the City or any other entity with respect to these illegal contributions.
Perhaps Chemerinsky would be good enough to share with Los Angeles Times readers his thoughts regarding Weiss' obligations to reimburse the City of Los Angeles and its residents with respect to the illegal Casden contributions that benefitted Weiss.
As far as the allegation that Trutanich refuses to meet Weiss in a debate, I attended a televised event/would-be debate yesterday (April 30th) at the Skirball Center. Although Weiss had been invited, he chose not to participate. Trutanich was there.
Steve Sugerman, a convicted felon from the Fleishman Hillard overbilling scandal fame, very early on hosted a high-priced fundraiser for none other than Jack Weiss. So great! Weiss allows a principal sponsor of his fundraiser to be a man convicted of bilking the City of Los Angeles out of hundreds of thousands of dollars. How is that for symbolism?
How would you like Weiss to be a watch dog as City Attorney over the antics of Sugerman on behalf of Playa Vista and the Autry Museum?
May 1 at 10:42 PM,
Nice post Dan. Thank you.
Dan, how'd you do with your little fundraiser for Trutanich a few days ago? Try to stir up some gossip too, eh?
Mayor Villaraigosa
Executive Directive No. 1
Ethics in Government
July 5, 2005
This article is worth reading in its entirety and come up with your own conclusions.
City Council Adopts New Ethics Rules
By Patrick Mcgreevy
July 06, 2005
Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa and the Los Angeles City Council took steps Tuesday to tighten ethics standards to prevent city commissioners and other officials from misusing their power for political or financial gain.
The actions came as an ethics expert and others questioned the propriety of Villaraigosa's inaugural gala, which allowed firms that have business before city officials to spend up to $100,000 to attend. The money from Thursday's event went to a publicly funded charity that is run out of the mayor's office.
The ethics reforms enacted by the mayor and council were praised by good government advocates as long overdue. But several, including Michael Josephson, president of the Josephson Institute of Ethics in the Los Angeles area, were troubled by the mayor's decision to host a fundraiser that collected money from developers, city contractors and lobbyists, among others.
"They are giving the money to the charity to please the mayor," Josephson said. "You ought not be soliciting anything from anybody who wants something from you."
Villaraigosa based much of his successful campaign against Mayor James K. Hahn on his pledge to clean up City Hall and ensure that contributions were not influencing city decisions. Federal and county grand juries continue to look into whether city contracts were tied to Hahn's political fundraising.
On Tuesday, the City Council adopted four new laws aimed at issues raised by the grand jury probes, including a ban on city commissioners participating in the process of evaluating and recommending city contracts that their commissions will eventually vote on.
There were complaints that some Hahn commissioners met with bidders for contracts at the same time they were raising money for him, creating an impression that bidders had to "pay to play."
The council also banned commissioners Tuesday from earning money to lobby City Hall, and it required paid campaign consultants and fundraisers to register with the city Ethics Commission and take classes on campaign finance rules.
The council also required lobbyists to file their quarterly activity reports online to make it easier for the public to follow their actions.
"I believe the reforms passed today will hold political appointees and politicians to the highest ethical standards," said Councilwoman Wendy Greuel, who wrote some of the changes.
Villaraigosa appeared before the council to urge support for the measures, saying he understood that some Angelenos viewed City Hall with suspicion. "I'm committed to making the changes necessary for local government to earn the public's trust back," he said.
Separately, the mayor signed an executive directive Tuesday that requires his staff and his appointees to commissions to attend annual ethics training and sign an ethics pledge. He also ordered commissioners to excuse themselves from voting on matters in which they have a conflict of interest and to notify the Ethics Commission and the mayor's office of every such recusal.
The issue came up recently in connection with the president of the Harbor Commission, Nicholas Tonsich, who removed himself from several votes on issues that posed a conflict of interest but failed to notify the Ethics Commission of his recusals.
Villaraigosa also named Thomas Saenz, a former attorney for the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund, as his top legal advisor and ethics officer. Hahn had an attorney who served as a deputy mayor and advised him but did not carry the same title.
Riordan was the last mayor to have his own chief legal counsel.
"Let's be clear. Honesty and ethics in City Hall start at the top," Villaraigosa said in his first news conference at City Hall. "We are the public's servants. We must set a higher benchmark by our actions to restore the public's faith and trust in local government. Today, we have begun to do just that."
However, Josephson and others raised concerns about the black-tie gala dinner at which dozens of businesses paid up to $100,000 each for their executives to attend the exclusive event with the new mayor at the Music Center.
The dinner raised about $2 million for LA's BEST, a city-funded after-school program that serves 130 elementary schools.
One of the $100,000 donors was L.A. Arena Co., owned by Denver billionaire Philip Anschutz, who is also co-owner of Staples Center.
The company signed an agreement with the city in 2001 to participate in building a $1-billion entertainment and shopping district near the Los Angeles Convention Center. The project will include a 55-story hotel that would receive up to $177 million in city subsidies.
An affiliated entity, Anschutz Entertainment Group, is hoping to win approval from the mayor and the City Council for the final subsidy agreement in the next three months.
Josephson said he was troubled that businesses, at the behest of the mayor, were donating to a charity just before the mayor and the council were expected to take action on issues affecting those businesses.
"Whenever a person in power asks
for something from someone they have power over, the person asked does not have complete freedom to say no," Josephson said. "The concern is, whenever a company pays for anything, there is a reason: Either it is trying to curry favor or avoid punishment."
The headquarters of LA's BEST is in a City Hall suite assigned to the mayor's office, and the program is largely financed through the city budget by the mayor.
Villaraigosa bristled when asked at his news conference whether the
public should be troubled by the special-interest donations to the gala. "They should never be concerned when people are willing to support children in need and their after-school programs," he said. "Without that public-private partnership, thousands of kids wouldn't have an after-school program."
But Gerald Silver, president of Homeowners of Encino and a Villaraigosa supporter, said the mayor should consider disqualifying himself from acting on issues involving big donors to the city-run charity. "It's fine to use the bully pulpit to raise money for a charity, as long as he doesn't weigh in on the decision," Silver said.
When asked Tuesday whether L.A. Arena Co.'s donation to his favorite charity would affect his decision on the hotel subsidy, Villaraigosa said, "Absolutely not."
Hahn proposed an ethics reform that would have prohibited city contractors and bidders from fundraising for or contributing to charities and campaign funds on behalf of elected officials.
The practice, Hahn said in a February 2004 letter, "creates the potential perception that fundraising influences the contracting" approval process.
Villaraigosa has not taken a position on the measure, which remains stalled in the City Council.
Besides the lucrative hotel subsidy, the mayor's office could help Anschutz financially in other ways.
Another Anschutz company owns a pipeline through the city that is required to have a city franchise.
In addition, the Department of Water and Power board voted last month to pay $300 million to Anschutz Pinedale Corp. in Denver to buy a portion of the company's natural gas reserves in Wyoming.
"We've been big supporters of Antonio's and have had a great relationship for years," said Michael Roth, an Anschutz spokesman.
Others currently seeking favorable action from City Hall who bought tables at Villaraigosa's dinner include developer J.H. Snyder, who is seeking approval of large commercial and residential developments in the San Fernando Valley, and Cerrell Associates, a lobbying firm with clients seeking City Hall approvals.
Don Schultz, a City Hall watchdog and president of the Van Nuys Homeowners Assn., said the practice sounded to him like "pay to play," even though the money was going to a charity.
"Any company that spends that kind of money for a city event when it has business pending before the city, you have to wonder if it passes the smell test," he said.
L.A. Times
http://articles.latimes.com/2005/jul/06/local/me-mayor6
Ethics in Government
Ethics in Government
http://mayor.lacity.org/stellent/groups/electedofficials/@myr_ch_contributor/documents/contributor_web_content/lacity_mayors_003960.pdf
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