Our Readers Write About Richard Alarcon
The debate about the arrest and indictment of Councilman Richard Alarcon has heated up in our comments section. Here's a couple interesting ones.
Should he stay...
You can't make someone leave before he has been found guilty. We still have a principle in this Country of "innocent until proven guilty". As much as some people in this Country would like to change that, it is still the previous.
As much as I am not a fan of Councilman Alarcon. He will stand trial and if found guilty, I am sure the Council will remove him from his seat. But until that happens he should be allowed to stay.
Or should he go...
The people who came out to say nice things about all the good Richard Alarcon does for his constituents should be asking him why he would put it all at risk because he refuses to simply live in the district with the people who elected him to represent them.
The purpose of Prop R, which extended the council term from two terms, to three terms, was to allow a councilmember to get in there and get some "long term" projects done. Because by the time you learn your way and become effective, there's no time to get any long-term goals accomplished.
But, AlarCON had to go and flaunt a loophole, where he ran for an additional term, since he was eligible, even though it was not in the spirit of the measure. And too bad the authors did not put a clause allowing only first term and existing council members to serve three terms.
But AlarCON slipped in, and now not only doesn't CD 7 get the "long-term" CM they were supposed to under term extensions, now he isn't even going to finish out his term.
All because he felt he was above the law, above his people, and just could not bring himself to live in the district.
What a crazy thing to go to jail and lose your seat over. It almost immediately qualifies you as a sociopath.
So to the people who are happy because he approved a project for you that he had his shady contractors work on, and that's where the real corruption transacts; they should be asking Mr. AlarCON why he put it all at risk when all he had to do was live in his district.
Again, never under-estimate a sociopath.
And for the record, the horseshoe cannot be happier, even though they won't suspend him. They ARE popping champagne corks. The way it was described to me was, "Do you remember how people felt about Jack Weiss? Well that's how they feel about AlarCON."
Labels: Richard Alarcon
Posted by Michael Higby @ 8/06/2010 10:15:00 PM
13 Comments:
This guy is crooked as the day is long. For the community to not rise up and demand he step aside while charges are pending, shows that the citizens of L.A. truly deserve the pathetic elected officials they have.
Either we gather up and storm city hall, just as they did in the City of Bell the last couple weeks, and demand that our representatives take action by suspending Alarcon, or we deserve what we get, and we should all just shut our mouths for good.
And I wish people would stop with blaming this on politics or race. Anyone who knows Alarcon knows that he's been corrupt for years, and everyone has let him get away with it.
He was indicted after his staff was brought before a grand jury.
Figure it out people, his own people are the ones who divulged his bad behavior.
Sure, you are innocent until proven guilty.....in a court of law.
If someone has been accused and arrested of possession of child porn, you would still allow them to serve as principal of your child's elementary school, until the jury renders its verdict, right?
11:00PM is correct.
There is nothing more to add.
It's all about race, Alarcon is one of our most esteemed latino politicians.
He will be found innocent by a jury of his peers(latinos), the white jurors will vote for a guilty verdict, that's the way it is in AmeriKKKa.
Shove it, Don. Your spin doesn't stick here. Ha, ha! Mr. Hero is going to jail because of the color of his skin. Remember, Don...THAT'S WHY! His skin color.
"You can't make someone leave before he has been found guilty."
Wrong. The City Charter specifically authorizes suspension pending trial.
NOTHING IS GOING TO HAPPEN TO ALARCON. NO ONE IN THIS CITY EVER IS PUNISHED OR MADE AN EXAMPLE OF. THAT'S WHY CORRUPTION CONTINUES IN THIS COUNTRY. CITY OF BELL IS ON THE RIGHT TRACT WHAT ABOUT LA.
Strange you mention the gratuitous and ignorant comments but not the one that alleges it's Wendy behind this, payback because of the fast one Alarcon and Fuentes tried to pull with AB1818 to rezone Verdugo Hills Golf Course to benefit a friend. When she was running for Controller and suddenly discovered Sunland-Tujunga.
ALLEGEDLY. No proof this commenter is right but it's an interesting thought.
In fact Alarcon deserves to be thrown out of office for THAT if it's true he colluded with Fuentes much more than for whether his main residence is the house in CD2 which he also pays taxes on and owns.
Anyone who sneaks to the State Assembly AROUND the local city officials because he knows he's doing something underhanded should be punished.
That goes too for Clown Carmen AND that other Latino "One Bill Gil" Cedillo, where the two of them tried to get the State to pass a bill making him the only city attorney in the country - and EVER even in L A since the bill would have applied ONLY to him not any successor - to get to have a grand jury! A political ploy to get back at their now mutual enemy Mayor Antonio and certain others.
Rightwing sneak Clown Carmen and leftwing Latino sneak Cedillo are no better than Alarcon when it comes to their "ethics." The fact that someone who joined rightwingers Kevin James, Walter Moore - David Berger, McIntyre and company blasting SO40 and Bratton, then joins with his political opposite, and v.v., says a lot.
"One Bill Gil" hopes to become Two Bill Gil, making Cal the only state to oppose the Arizona law.
Alarcon is just one of several, but he is getting busted on something that no one cares about.
A political grandstand for Cooley.
I thought Wendy was just starting her mayor 2013 campaign early and teamed up with Trutanich to try and tarnish any possible opponents. She must have thought Richard could be a future mayoral candidate.
Wendy and Trutanich have been feuding in a continuation of the Laura Chick-Trutanich controller issue, where he lied to Chick that he'd drop the suit and support her right to audit any elected official including him of course, but then called her and her lawyer Woocher moochers and liars, when it was HIM he could be describing.
(Irony? Woocher is representing Alarcon now - maybe he needs money to make up for what Trutanich stiffed him on after in Doug McIntyre's words, calling Chick AND Woocher "truth, justice and the American way" when he needed them.)
Because of Trutanich being a "I gotta 'win' at all costs!" childish bully, Wendy can't audit city officials, remember???
This works to Trutanich's advantage because it makes her unable to grandstand the way Chick did on "discovering waste and abuse." (True Chick "discovered" things like the DNA rape kit backlog LONG after city councilmembers and LAPD had been working on how to resolve it. But she still got the media attention needed to get the problem fixed.)
So I'm skeptical that Wendy would not be joining Trutanich against Alarcon. More likely Alarcon's joining Fuentes on AB818 and Verdugo Hills did it.
However, nothing is out of the question if Trutanich could use Cedillo to gang up on others.
Wendy wants to be Mayor and push Perry and maybe Garcetti out of the running, and whoever else.
Alarcon was more likely to return to the Senate than try for Mayor, but there are numerous others.
There was talk that Nooch wanted to be Mayor but with all his laughable PR right out of the bull pen he'd be a walking laughingstock - however he's nothing if not overly ambitious with no sense of a reality check.
Alarcon's only hope is that he has something on Antonio and will flip for a reduced sentence.
Otherwise he's toast.
Any gratuitous comp to Weiss is just that by the usual Trutanich teabag society types. "It was explained to me" says brave "anon" - by no doubt one of the same Kaye type mob. In fact neither the Ethics Commish nor those vengeful nutjobs Berger-James or the Nooch himself could find anything but innuendo. He was subject to the most slanderous campaign I've ever seen.
Makes me sad for L A because it wasn't about the issues but about deceiving voters about who Trutanich really was, in line with some agenda by the Times to skew more Republican in a desperate attempt to keep its aging, conservative subscribers. And certain outside interests.
Note how they're campaigning FOR Cooley, not publishing how he's been sharply reprimanded even by the conservative Superior Court judge presiding over the persecution/ retaliation lawsuit filed by his whole Assn. of Assistant DA's in his office.
We should all be concerned because the suit alleges that politics in his office has driven out the best and brightest, rewarded flunkies. Berger works for him then went on loan to Trtanich to do their dirty work, case in point.
(Side note, everyone's complaining that the Brown-Whitman slugfest is about throwing biased allegations against each other, not informing.)
Nooch after all was screaming "criminal aspects" about anyone and everyone and couldn't find anything to back that up, either.
So he tried to end-run the city charter to get grand jury subpoenae powers to give him access to anyone's records without first having to show cause - got caught in time. If there's anything on Perry, Koretz, Reyes or the ones he has it in for over billboards or pot, he's got to go through the usual channels.
Any councilmembers who fell for the smear tactics against Weiss are a little less stupid now, and I doubt they're gloating over even Alarcon's plight after how Trutanich tried to get the power to go after anyone who opposes him politically or dares even exercise their First Amendment rights like Perry. Rosendahl still doesn't seem to see that Trutanich is just Cooley's puppet, giving him access to the City officials via his "confidential atty-client privilege", pushing Cooley's agenda towards his campaign - a Republican first for all his noise about being apolitial. ha, actions speak louder than words.
As for Alarcon, he has the back luck to coincide with the corruption in Bell and the public thirst to hang 'em all. But even so there's no doubt the timing "just coincides" with Cooley's run for AG and after all, he didn't get to make a big showtrial over Polanski, he needs a moral crusade and found one.
Can't imagine even the stupidest members of the Council can't see they all could be next. But now that he is indicted they'll no doubt keep distance.
If they do throw Alarcon out of the Council, it will be like Pelosi trying to prove she's above reproach herself with how she's handling Maxine Waters and Rangel,
throw out the weakest link in hopes of saving themselves.
If the BOSSMAN is dirty than so is his staff. are Nuch and Cooley looking into the Alarcon staffers with connections to non-profits and Richard Polanco???
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