L.A. City Council = Pathetic!!
This week there was a great deal of controversy over the fact that an African-American man named Mike Hunt has been arriving to City Council meetings dressed up in a full Ku Klux Klan outfit. The Council and several other public speakers have wasted a lot of time discussing the subject and there was a lot of back and forth haggling over whether Mike Hunt would be allowed to wear his hood while he gave his public comment. City Council President Eric Garcetti repeatedly talked about having him removed, but did actually allow Mike Hunt his public comment moment.
I thought the whole thing was rather pathetic and showed exactly how our city lacks true leadership.
Our Council members need to grow some balls and some backbone.
They are not tough enough to be in politics.
Alarcon and Rosendahl appeared incredibly weak in this dispute. Alarcon saying he felt "threatened" even though Hunt was the only one in costume, and Hunt had to pass through a metal detector to get into the building. Not to mention the fact that there are always several armed officers in City Council chambers. Rosendahl offered up some type of nonsensical gibberish about Hunt being a "terrorist threat".
I'm not defending Mike Hunt...he's an idiot who just wants attention and has an axe to grind over some personal issues (he has sued the City of Los Angeles in the past). But if you go to the point of banning him just because you don't like what he's doing, then you are only a step and half away from Totalitarianism. Angry public comment speaker Matt Dowd assailed the attempts to stop or silence Hunt as "Un-American."
Any halfway competent political leader would have seen through Hunt and his bullshit and just ignored his behavior and allowed him his two minutes to speak like every one else. Treating him special actually encourages more idiots like him to pull stunts like this. He actually got some of the council members so wound up that they walked out of the meeting on Wednesday and left important City business unattended. Jan Perry, Herb Wesson, Bernard Parks, and Greig Smith decided that someone else's distasteful clothing was more important than them doing the jobs they are being paid to do.
Wonderful. Now any clown with an axe to grind knows exactly how to break up an important City Council meeting. Just wear some clothing that they find offensive.
Unwittingly, Mike Hunt may have invented a new way for an average citizen to prevent the City Council members from doing their usual job of bankrupting the City.
Posted by Phil Jennerjahn @ 7/19/2009 01:01:00 AM
20 Comments:
Everyone should attend city council on Tuesday as pissed off tax payers because 5 agenda items deal with Jackson memorial. More waste of time and bullshit grandstanding. Never in the history of LA has this city had a group of low life, classless, uneducated, no leadership, dumbass politicans. The editorials on the whole Jackson affair say it best. When you have all local newspaper slamming these morons they are listening to the people of LA. Notice Antonio has been out of the limeight all week. Could it be he doesn't want to answer questions about the money he took from AEG. I say BOOOOOOO him wherever he goes.
No, Phil.
Pathetic is what you, ZD, Mike Hunt and Matt Dowd are.
The members of the City Council all have a life. They have successfully campaigned for and won a seat on the governing body of Los Angeles, and, while they are far from perfect, they are degrees of magnitude better than any of you clowns.
Why don't you guys let this blog get back to what it once was, inside baseball about the goings on on the third and fourth floor of the City Hall?
Instead, we are subjected to hearing about an idiotic black who insists on using two minutes to address the Council in a KKK outfit. It is bad enough that he does it, do you have to glorify it and write aobut it?
Get a life.
Congratulations to Mike Hunt!!
He knows how to get the attention of the City Councilmembers which is a difficult if not impossible thing to do.
And, he is expressing his right to freedom of expression.
"I am not defending Michael Hunt."
Yeah, sure.
Unfortunately, Hunt and Dowd detract from real issues at City Hall. They are attention seeking egoists. Yes, we should pressure the council not to pick up the tab for the Jackson memorial - especially when AEG are currently selling all their video footage of the memorial and the rehearsals - biding starts at $50M as reported on Nikki Finke's blog.
They're making over $50M and we pick up the tab for all the support? No way Villar. We need to hold these people to account, but we do not need Dowd and Hunt to speak for us.
That Jan Perry photo is pretty scary.
It's hard to believe that Richard Alarcon, who can bully speakers with his sarcasm and condescension so well when he wants to, would ever feel threatened by this known person who has spoken many times before in coucil chambers.
The exit to lose quorum on Wednesday was a stunt in itself and would not have worked if they did it in the first half hour of the meeting.
What the Council does best is act badly in their jobs. It's long past a move for a Council pay-scale reform.
in cd-14
What funny is city council morons telling people like Mike Hunt and Matt Dowd who behave even worst the council how to behave. You have to earn respect and none of the above have. Council morons are despised throughout the city and at all the NC Alliance meetings its all about the bullshit these morons have done to our city. Marijuana shops out of control because lazy idiots like Reyes, Weiss and Huizar didn't pay attention. The billboard mess because of all the idiots on council and now the Jackson fiasco cause only Zine had the balls to stand up. Don't get me wrong Zine is another idiot but give him credit for being somewhat of a man
CLASSIC!!! A MUST READ. WHO WOULD HAVE KNOWN MARIEL GARZA HAD BALLS
Postcards from the mayor: What Antonio Villaraigosa might have said
http://www.dailynews.com/opinions/ci_12860701
What a joke!! Its all over the internet the jackson's made asses of this so called World City. Antonio needs to have the Jackson pay up and apologize to Angelenos. Its being reported there was no body in the casket at Staples. They shut down fwys for this, and spent millions on a fake funeral. The Jackson were all pretending there was a body inside casket.
....WAS Michael Jackson's family crying over an empty coffin at his memorial in LA last week? While it was widely reported that Jacko's brain was not in the casket with the rest of him, an insider claims, "The coffin was empty. There was no body there at all." Another wag added, "There were two autopsies done but now there's a criminal investigation. Why would they release the body in a week if there's a criminal investigation? And if they charge someone with his death, that person will want his or her own autopsy done." A rep for the Jacksons said, "I will try to find out," but didn't return calls.
You can SEE my take-
When Free Speech Advocate
Mike Hunt, arrives
"dressed to the nines"...
"City Council Gets LOST ! "
http://tinyurl.com/kkxj6o
Video Louis
Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa has appointed entrepreneur and nightclub impresario Sam Nazarian to the Board of Airport Commissioners.
Is he Iranian? Seems Antonio and Huizar are really helping the Irans in Los Angeles naming squares after them and taking their money. Now the lawyer for Antonio's biggest contributor is in trouble. Isn't Saban Iranian as well? Lawyer to Saban, Krane used to allow his star client, Haim Saban, to evade taxes on capital gains of $1.5 billion Saban made after selling his interest in the Fox Family Channel in 2001. In surprising testimony in 2006, the media mogul told the U.S. Sentate that his limited formal education prevented him from understanding the shelter was illegal. He ended up paying $250 million in back taxes and penalties. While authorities were investigating the Krane case, they served a search warrant at his West Hollywood home, where they found the fake passport documents, along with crystal meth, date-rape drugs and horse tranquilizers.
These are the people Antonio associates with. Didn't Saban donate to the Laker parade? I think he did.
OMG!!! WTF??? I just saw the replay of council bastards questioning appointees. What planet are these council members living on to act so arrogantly they way they speak to people as if their shit doesn't stink? THEY ARE THE FAILURES OF THIS CITY. Smith is Mrs. Doubtfire in drag sounds like an Illiterate idiot and definitely has suppressed feelings he takes out on the world. Come out Greig!!! Then Zorro loser Alarcon who speaks to people like a dog. Definitely no class and acts like he's in TJ. Then Alvin the Chipmunk Huizar. Again sticking up for illegals and May 1st. WTF!!! questioning LAPD, damn all media is touting they're the only ones getting it right compared to these fools. Then Janice Hahn, Bubble Head, what a loser. She doesn't even know how to speak intelligently and sounds like a bumbling idiot. Are these the fools who represent the 2nd largest city? No one respects them and with Mike Hunt's publicity stunt they are all in the same category now. Compared to all the meetings in the city, council meetings it is known are the most out of control and worst by far.
3:53, you must be a newcomer, but welcome.
It's all been going on for years, but moved to high gear once Tony became mayor four years ago.
Lots of people don't have any idea of how bad it is until they tune in to a meeting or two and catch on to see what the complaints are about.
3:53, I also heard Smith chew out the woman from the Police Commission and some other police commissioners the other day over their Chief Bratton, which was WAY out of line. Smith whined that "it seems like the Chief doesn't even listen to us!" because Smith claims that Bratton's edict not wanting retired LAPD officers to wear the look-alike uniform on movie sets is what's driving away the movie business. NO dum-dum, the lack of tax incentives is! Look what other states are doing.
Bratton is right to say that it's confusing to the public to have these old guys who are not part of LAPD command structure and discipline be taken as LAPD by the public. He's not saying don't hire them, just don't use their uniform and the prestige that goes along with it.
Bratton is ALSO right to want to keep some real LAPD at LAX because they've been trained in anti-terrorism under him to the top national standards, while LAX cops aren't nearly as professional.
Smith, Zine, Parks and then Hahn, Perry, Huizar from the other side chewing out LAPD and Bratton and even volunteer commissioners all the time is just disgusting. If these idiots drive him away and have to search for someone new, they won't even be smart enough to realize what they've done. Only Wesson and a few others "get it." We've got Trutanich blowharding at everyone now, are they all going down that path to the bullying and vulgar?
Alarcon has always been rude, not only to Boks and the billboard inspector guys who WERE idiots, but he also refused to vote for some woman on CRA because she failed to volunteer that "social justice" was her priority, even though she never said it wasn't. He said he was just vetoing her to make a point that "social justice is important in this city."
We have his group and Janice Hahn and Rosendahl raising salaries to "living wage" plus free healthcare for the whole family for workers at and around LAX, car washes, etc. to get union support.
Idiot Rosendahl got the filming issue wrong too, claiming residents have to be ready to put up with lots more filming on their street and just be grateful the productions are in town.
HELL NO, have you ever had them on your street? Huge trailers, often a dozen or more and dozens of cars, hundreds of crew, you can't park near your own house and they act like they own the place. Noise from morning til night, often waivers for all-night. Only a few houses right next door get paid or the jerk who's lease their house, the rest get nothing but hell. And they love the quiet, narrow residential streets with views the most like in the hills, precisely where they can't handle the extra traffic.
Not one of them got anything right.
Taking in all of the complaints and derision posted here, do you notice something odd? They keep getting re-elected.
That situation may be where some complaints could be directed.
The even-numbered CDs will come up for election next.
The elections for odd-numbered CDs were just done this year and many had no opponents or very weakly supported challengers.
Re: Michael Hunt
Talk about senseless provocation of government. PC 422 needs to be amended to include this kind of nonsense i.e. government provocateur. The old fashion council, back when John Ferarro was President would have lead this guy away in handcuffs.
Public comment has already been restricted to two minutes and one minute because of whacks like Michael Hunt. The public comment process will change once more thanks to people like this and again will take the voice away from real citizens with real issues.
I can imagine that by now, a lot of citizens with real issues don’t even want to go to public comment anymore because of acts like this.
HELLLOOOO City council goons Hollywood production left a long time ago. There are out of work crew guys unemployed for almost 18 months now. Its been in every major paper Hollywood left for other states because of tax incentives. Greig Smith the biggest misfit of the bunch tried to say those out of shape, lazy retired cops would make production leave. I laughed so hard. Its obvious if you read all the blogs this group of misfits are so jealous of anything Bratton does cause all the editorials, and media blogs said LAPD were the only ones who basically gave the city a great rep after the misfits fucked up starting with Perry. What we can all do is help a good candidate that is not aligned with any of these misfits or Antonio get elected in CD2. We need to do this with each election and thanks to power of internet word gets out faster. I heard this blog gets thousands of views each day even though people don't post.
Great dialogue on here today. How much does Huizar hate cops? So much that he brought up the
May 1st incident that happened in 2007. That is a FUCKER!!!!! The cops heard about it. Sure sign he loves illegals.
Huizar is making the rounds in CD14 giving all his kiss butts awards. Every CD has them, You know the people in every CD that are labeled "losers" with the council person.
Huizar Community leaders =
You must kiss my ass constantly and tell me what a great job I'm doing
You must tell me where others are having events so I can attend and put my banner/photo and pretend I organized it
You must support gang bangers and illegals, and hate cops
You must never say one negative word about me or my staff
You must support everything I support and oppose everything I oppose
You must not have any self respect and must be very insecure like me
You must not like the same people I don't like and treat them like shit especially constituents
You should be just like me and have no class, no morals, no education, The entire city knows about this lame ass. Around the horse shoe he is labeled an arrogant asshole!!!
7:36 Foxy Lady- the Michael Hunt activity should not be blamed for whatever time is available for public comment. The Council's Rules cover all that. http://cityclerk.lacity.org/cps/pdf/CouncilRules.pdf
Your references to being led out in handcuffs also might demonstrate the ills that were present in the way political and police activities were handled and why you don't see that now.
There are always people who want to control and limit the outside involvement and access to the processes, and here there are on the Council, so that things happen just as they want them to be, totally controlled and absent any interference by such reasons as oversight and accountability.
These kinds of "disruptions", magnified by the handling of Council members is used as an excuse for imposing restrictions while people fret about the superficial nature of the "disruption," allowing the restrictive changes to be slipped in without deserved scrutiny.
The council needs more oversight and inspection by the public, not less access.
And why would "people with real isssues" decide not to take matters to Council Chambers if there is truly any merit to the positions. You would expect their issues to determine whether a trip to a meeting is needed, and not be deterred by assorted views that are another's act of free speech or perceived by the person to be a free speech matter.
The real problem is the council.
As a side issue, the disrespect for the peole coming to speak at council is shown simply by putting them very often at or near the end of the matters presented, while the Rules of the L.A. City Council, noted above,
22. The Agenda shall reflect, and the business of regular meetings of the Council shall be transacted, as far
as practicable, in the following order:
a. Roll Call.
b. Approval of Minutes.
c. Commendatory Resolutions.
d. Public Testimony on Non-Agenda Items (within jurisdiction of Council).
e. Council Hearings Required By Law.
f. Items for Which Required Public Hearings Have Been Held.
g. Items for Which Required Public Hearings Have Not Been Held.
h. Items for Which Future Hearing Dates Must Be Set.
I. Items Called Special.
j. Motions For Posting and Referral.
k. Councilmembers’ Request for Excuse From Attendance at Council Meetings.
l. Closed Session.
m. Adjourning Motions and Council Adjournment.
You have item "d." that has come to be know as "public comment" on non-agenda matters to be heard BEFORE all but "roll call, approval of minutes and commendatory resolutions (which I think includes the dog & pony Fridays).
Council does not follow their own rules. The memebers of the public appearing for speaking on non-agenda are intentionally treated shabbily and in violation of Council's own rules.
That kind of action, and not the inconsequential actions of Hunt, should be taken to be remedied.
You will not see that with this case of self-serving, holier than thou characters. The term, "LEADERSHIP," inserted as nearly mandatory language in each CMs references, usually to another CM, especially on Friday's awards
sessions, is wholly undeserved and trite.
Working on following the rules to serve the public as already provided for in existing rules needs to be done first but NO ONE has the leadership to make the needed correction, and so "COMPLIANCE" is another word that is absent in reference to the behavior of Council members.
a view in cd-14
I don't get it, I hate the KKK, but if someone dresses in a KKK outfit and wants to address the council we cannot prohibit it. If we do then we can outlaw flag burning and I am not in favor of that. How about a city council that is offended by gays and decides to outlaw someone wearing a rainbow because it may offend someones beliefs? We have to remain consistent with the first amendment or we destroy the first amendment.
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