Gabrielle Giffords Update/ Friday Morning Open Thread
Labels: gabrielle giffords
Posted by Unknown @ 1/14/2011 12:27:00 AM
Friday, January 14, 2011
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- Email proof of stonewalling on "CLARTSgate" by Cit...
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- D'oh!
- Porno For Psychos
- Assemblyman Mike Gatto's slate loses big time in 4...
- Final Thoughts
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If anyone has a more annoying, grating voice than Tamar Galatzan, it's Debbie Wasserman-Schultz.
Today's the day... yup, yup. Jan. 14.
Red Spot gets his detailed transfer information on the CLARKS funds and will know evberything he needs to know to load the "smoking gun" to knock Jose Huizar out of the race.
Or not.
Then what will become of the illiterate one's already pointless threads (and fairly pointless life).
I suspect, next...
TIMESHEET-gate, where he'll thrice-daily posts updates on why the Clerk's office or CD14 won't provide him with minute-by-minute timesheets for every person who worked on CLARKS-funds initiatives.
Work it well, grind this into a fine powder, and it could consume Mayor Sam's for Huizar's next 8 years on Council.
Well, according to story on The City Maven, Council Member Huizar has just admitted he played a trick out of the Robert Rizzo of Bell playbook....hide the way one transfers public (taxpayer) money.
Huizar does the right thing and transfers $90,000 of CLARTS money by way of council motions. However, he chooses to divert almost a $1,000,000 (ONE MILLION DOLLARS) of the CLARTS money - not by the open and transparent council motion - but by hiding the almost $1,000,000 in a mid year adjustment!
And much of it for staff salaries! Aren't CD14 staffers already paid? Just like all the other city staff? But, no, for Huizar, when people at City Hall are laid-off, put on furlough, have their pay reduced, Huizar INCREASES the pay for HIS staff (maybe it's for all the hard work they put in for him campaigning!
You CLARTS-heads better start getting your stories straight...
Are the CLARKS bar funds "taxpayer" money, or not?
(Are they taxes collected from the citizens of L.A. -- through property or income taxes???)
Some say yes, some say no. But the truth is ... the TRUTH doesn't matter to bloggers here.
But do any of you REALLY know what you're ranting about.
(I say NO!)
Smith dropped out of the CD12 race... coming on here and other blogs leaving comments about how serious he is... and then you drop out?
Did you think you could just put up a pretty web site, get your GHSNC to get behind you, and just because you're not Englander, you would win?
I guess we know why you never went around the district introducing yourself to all of the various organizations in CD12: you were never serious.
Oh well... now we're guaranteed 27th Hal Bernson term.
Maybe someone legit steps up and stops it from being 28.
9:57
Guess what, I'm betting that was all prefectly kosher under City rules and the way that fund was set up.
Tough darts, farmer.
You want to decide how council amenities funds are distributed and define what constitutes "benefits" to the district -- run for office and get your own damn district.
Personally, I kinda LIKE having someone actually present at the field offices when I call to report problems or know that they're moving projects through that are tied to that fund.
Beats calling City department offices and getting recordings that they are once again closed on furlough the only day you have time to deal with it. OR, that the only person in the department that was ever useful to you, or knew the ropes took an early retirement, so the City could cut payroll further.
And here's another bolt of lightning from the blue for you... if the almight 'Tricky Nicky' Pacheco - the master of skating JUST along the edge of what was permissable and bending rules until they barely resembled themselves - (whose ghost is still out there trying to live off the legacy of "I created CLARTS" - and stirring up turmoil among the great Republican mini-minority in CD14) had by some miracle still been in office when those funds started pipelining through, he ALSO would have used CLARTS funds for admin and staff costs.
(Otherwise, in his infinite divine ethereal wisdom, the rules for the disposition of the funds wouldn't have ALLOWED for the possibility, now WOULD THEY??)
And, the Trickter himself would have ALSO gotten tired (probably a year sooner), of having to add another Council motion for every penny spent - onto crowded agendas - just to get rubber-stamp votes, and would have also started transferring larger sums into accounts that could be distributed quicker.
Bogus non-issue... just keeps reminding me that if this is the BIGGEST beef the Huizar-haters have to hang their pyramid-shaped tinfoil conspiracy hats on in order to oust Huizar (something they would have been championing today, even if the CLARTS fund never existed), then it's going to easily be "Councilmember Huizar" for as long as term limits allow.
"Cease & desist" that (11:34 a.m.) Tricky Nicky!
You know you would have; you know you did; you know you left that back door open for your own benefit. Now you're just ticked that someone else is in the driver's seat.
David Zahniser's take on debate at link to Times below.
(My headline? "Rudy Martinez TKO's... himself!")
http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lanow/2011/01/arrests-or-laziness-la-city-council-candidates-discuss-unfair-campaign-accusations.html
Apparently David Z. couldn't find anyone in the audience to interview that supported Rudy Rich (who wasn't traveling in the same car with him).
The CRA Board just voted this morning to transfer almost $1 billion to evade the State's budget adjustment to abolish the CRA on July 1, 2011.
Ron Kaye has the footage of the meeting on his website. Mayor Sam missed this HUGE story.
10:59am,
When it comes to accuracy and Scott "Red Spot" Johnson, I'll paraphrase Tina Turner and ask "WHAT'S ACCURACY GOT TO DO WITH IT?"
When Scott's in charge, it has NOTHING to do with accuracy. I like Higby, and I even like Joe B. even though I disagree with him. But Scott puts in ZERO fact checking time, as evidenced by his retraction and lawsuit threat Higby received. Imagine: he said Gatto was evicted from a home he never lived in.
Yeah. Accuracy. This blog needs more accuracy and less "rough & tumble," which doesn't apply to the hyper-sensitive Red Spot.
Too bad on that.
All the while Zahniser was revealing Tony Villar as a substance-less publicity hound, he was a hero on this blog.
Now that he's accurately reporting that Rudy Martinez stumbled over his own two feet in the first actual encounter with Huizar, I'm sure the howlers here will start damning the Times reporter for bad journalism.
(By community college standards, of course).
Some things are just too predictable.
Even better, Martinez's guilt-ridden rambling confessions will be touted as messiah-like "transparency."
1:23 P.M.
Oh, that reminds me, I forgot to mail in my rent check for the apartment I've never seen.
I hope the landlord I've never met doesn't throw my possessions I never moved in out onto the street I've never driven on.
In other news, that guy from the Muppets dropped out of the running for chairman of the Republican National Committee, so the party gets whiter.
Wait, wait, wait. Rudy M. told the Times he's been convicted 4 times, but he could't remember what one of them was for?
When does anyone, anywhere "forget" something they're been arrested, charged, and ended up in criminal court over, then finally convicted?
Also, his apologists started out saying these were "youthful" indiscretions. Check the dates, people, this guy must have been 30-35 for some of these... We had a sitting council president not too long ago that was younger than that.
Not only that, one was a conviction for "loitering"?
Really? Honestly?
No one except drunken, penniless, bums on skidrow are ever arrested for "loitering."
When anyone else gets CONVICTED of loitering, it's code for "I got arrested for something MUCH worse" -- often drunk and disorderly, but pretty much anything criminal where you're outside on the street somewhere.
How about some enterprising reporter actually asks this guy... "don't tell us what you were CONVICTED of finally (after a plea), tell us the charges the cop actually hauled your ass in on."
Just exactly "when" does all the "transparency" that this guy is bringing to the table start to kick in... ?
Maybe once he's had better media training from his next campaign consultant on how to lie better? Maybe the day after he's (never) elected? Maybe the day he (never) announces for his second term?
"I have to look up the information..." PFAAAAAH! What a "transparent" dodge.
(Maybe what HE means by "transparent" is that we'll be able to see right through his lies?)
Hell, I was detained one time in my life by the police for something, neve charged, and I can recall EVERY damn second of the incident, including how bright the flashing lights were, the rank of the backup officer they called out, and how many gawkers came out and stared at me until they let me go with a "warning."
Of course I was sober at the time . . . (NOT that I'm suggesting ANYONE else who has admitted to being "convicted" of - heh-heh-heh, wink-wink - "loitering" was ever otherwise).
Hey 10.59, I am 9.57, probably the person you are calling a CLARTS head. I will respond by calling you a BONE head.
Of course, the CLARTS money belongs to the taxpayers! Do you believe it is the personal piggy bank of Jose Huizar? It is absolutely clear they ARE public funds. So, what are you arguing about? I say you don't know what you are talking about.
Any money that is in the public kitty is taxpayers money. And if you BONEheads don't understand that, I now see why you don't have a problem with Council Member Huizar wasting, frittering away, diverting, or hiding almost a million dollars (and maybe more)!
Huizar is viewed by some of his colleagues as the laziest council member, and his personal schedule obtained by the Weekly bears out such sentiment: It is filled with empty blocks of time, light weekends and workdays that sometimes end at 4 p.m. Huizar sits on the powerful Planning & Land Use Management Committee, or PLUM, where Los Angeles residents go to beg its three sitting council members to tone down multimillion-dollar projects.
LA Weekly February 26, 2009
Isn't this where Huizar's lazy reputation started????
1:25 Martinez's confessions will be viewed Villaragoisa-esque, since he is the King of Past Indiscretions, not Messiah-esque.
11.34, a spokesman for Council Member Huizar couldn't put it any better than you. Then again, maybe you are?
The pearl of wisdom I have gleamed from your post is that, hey, why bother with council motions, they are nothing but rubber stamps anyway!
Well, I don't want a councilman who "rubber stamps" what all the other council members put in front of him. And I would rather have a councilman who is open and transparent rather than one using the lame excuse of "well, my colleagues are going to rubber stamp whatever I do, so I will just follow the way they do things in Bell..."
You have made a damning indictment of your own councilman (as well as the other 14). That's why we need change!
2:13 p.m.
Show me in the CLARTS paperwork how this is "taxpayer" money.
It says it's to be used to BENEFIT the taxpayers of CD14, but it doesn't derive from taxpayers, it isn't collected as taxes.
Same way with any surplus moved across from DWP collections.
Then, as far as your judgement of me... I now see why you don't have a problem with Council Member Huizar wasting, frittering away, diverting, or hiding almost a million dollars (and maybe more)!
Really nasty terms considering that every government official in the mix so far says that EVERY PENNY WAS USED TO BENEFIT CD14 in some way.
Truth is, I would have a problem with ALL those things, IF your claims were based on any actual facts.
You see, this is where you fail the U.S. citizenship test... you seem to "feel" that if you "think" or suspect someone is guilty or something, and someone else suggests how that might be the case, regardless of the fact that there's no proof and there's even statements to the opposite extreme - like from the controller's office -- then they ARE guilty.
(Remind me not to have you on my jury panel if I'm ever accused on something).
2:32
"That's why we need change!"
Your wish, and a loose tooth under your pillow tonight, with get you a quick buck from the tooth fairy.
2:32 p.m.
a spokesman for Council Member Huizar couldn't put it any better than you. Then again, maybe you are?
1) Thank you. You're right.
2) And, no I'm not.
3) Good luck with getting a councilmember that will put forward a City Council motion for every single expenditure just so the handful of people who monitor these things can double-check and weigh in, and the Matt Dowds, and the two crazy ladies and the racist dude from SF Valley via satellite, and the white-haired ex-professors, and the other 6 Ch. 35 ranters can all take 2 minutes each to tell them that YOUR NOT LISTENING TO ME, this is NOT the way WE wacky dozen want this money spent.
Council meetings will now take place Mon-Sun, 6 a.m. to Midnight (then 1 a.m. to 4 a.m.), except during budget-setting periods, when there will be no midnight lunch break.
Daily posted agendas will be bound as 5-inch thick phone books, and left chained to the desks by where the cops xray you, for "public review".
(We do, you know, elect Councilmembers to "represent" us... we don't elect them to prepare all the paperwork and then bring them to all 4 million of us, and ask for permission to take each next steps.
Eastsider blog has similar story on Rudy Martinez's blundering through the confession no one asked him to make.
Looks like he's going to have to chip in another $50K - $100K of his own funds just to bring himself back to the level of being the harmless nobody in this race.
MORE RAMBLING ABOUT HUIZAR AND CD-14. THIS SITE IS LIKE AN ANN LANDERS COLUMN. CAN YOU FIX MY PROBLEM. WELL, YES WE CAN, BUT FIRST YOU HAVE TO UNDERSTAND WHY YOUR IN THIS SINKING BOAT IN THE FIRST PLACE. YOU AREN'T GOING TO STOP THE SINKING BY PRODUCING A FEW FACTS. THE PAPERS ARE FILLED WITH THEM AND HAVE BEEN FOR YEARS, HAS IT CHANGED ANYTHING, SO MUCH PRINT. MAY AS WELL BE IN ONE EAR AND OUT THE OTHER. MY POINT IS YOU HAVE TO PUT YOU ENERGY INTO PROMOTING THE PEOPLE WHO ARE RUNNING AGAINST THESE PEOPLE GIVE THEM THE PRESS AND PROFILE THEY NEED, THEN DEFEAT THE HUIZAR'S AND THEIR MACHINE. GOOD AND BAD PRESS IS ALL THE SAME IT'S PROMOTION,PERIOD. WHY FALL IN THAT TRAP. WE HAVE PEOPLE WHO ARE RUNNING AGAINST THEM. LETS HERE FROM THEM THAT'S WHAT "YOU TUBE" IS FOR. IT'S CALLED REAL COMMUNICATION, STUPID. PEOPLE WON'T VOTE FOR PEOPLE THEY DON'T KNOW OR HAVE NEVER HEARD. QUIT WRITING OFF PEOPLE WHO HAVE STEPPED UP TO RUN, THEY ARE NOT THE PROBLEM IT'S THE WINERS WHO EXPECT SOME ODD MIRACLE, THAT WON'T HAPPEN. YOU HAVE TO MAKE YOUR MIRACLE BY SUPPORTING AND VOTING IN SOMEONE ELSE.
IMHO, the only question to ask is, "why did Jose Huizar feel compelled to hide the transfer of CLARTS money into his salaries account"?
He seemed to be on the right track two times and then five times he buries the transfers in CAO reports, why?
Was it the dollar amounts, $250,000, $150,000, $200,000, etc.????
If the money was going to be used for good projects or good staff work why not just state that in a clear motion and not bury it in a CAO report???
What is all the secrecy about??
Inquiring minds want to know.
2:39 PM
If you ASSUME that every dollar that is transferred from the CLARTS fund to Jose Huizar's council office is a benefit to CD14 then you are right, CD 14 benefited.
But the real issue here isn't the transfer of the money, but why was it kept a secret for so long.
And don't say the CAO reports were voted on by the City Council and therefore the public knew the money was being transferred because the City of Bell budgets were passed by their Council and nobody realized the money stealing going on there.
It is the secrecy that hurts Jose Huizar not that he decided to beef up his salary account.
The CLARTS money is the council members discretionary money and if he wants to beef up his staff he can, but why be sneaky??
This is like the NO BID contract for $150,000.00 of CRA money he is sending to CASA 0101
http://clkrep.lacity.org/onlinedocs/2010/10-1821_rpt_cra_11-18-10.pdf
Why NO BID, NO RFP (request for proposals)??
And don't be naive to think that the CRA commissioners on their own decided to give this group $150,000 on its own when Jose Huizar already gave them $50,000 in CLARTS funds.
Why be sneaky about this? Why not let all the groups in CD14 compete for this $150,000 to do outreach??
2.52, you have just laid out the Robert Rizzo of Bell game plan.
I assume he told the corrupt 4 council members in Bell, "...hey, if we tell the taxpayers/the voters/the constituents/the people who pay your salaries, everything we are doing, we would have meetings 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. "And can you imagine our much paperwork there would be if we had to record every money transfer (especially what you pay the staff, i.e., me, Robert Rizzo." You know what, Council Members, these people elected you to make decisions like me paying myself a million dollars a year. "Let's not be open and transparent, there may be a few nutters out there who may complain about what we are doing."
Thank you, 2.52, for being honest enough to say you prefer the Robert Rizzo method of government.
"g" asks...
"CAN YOU FIX MY PROBLEM."
Well, yes maybe I can. First try holding the "caps lock" key down for a second; then get a prescription for Xanax.
All will be find in a few days.
3:53 p.m.
There was no "secrecy" I scan most City council agendas each week (maybe the only one responding here who bothers?) -- I saw several of these transfers, and I knew enough (from when Pacheco was ballyhooing that Villaraigosa had failed us as a Councilmember from 2003-05 for not using any of the money) -- and, BTW, risking that large batches would go BACK INTO GENERAL FUND as unused (read the fine print) -- about CLARTS to know what the fund was for.
What secret?
Published in CITY AGENDAS is SECRET? "Hidden in plain sight" maybe> E-mailed to hundreds, maybe thousands citywide, and approved by the controller each and every time.
This is HIDING?
Just because some newbies who were asleep thoughout the mid-2000 decade didn't ask about them -doesn't mean anything was a secret.
Heck, The 8-10 neighborhood councils in CD14 spend (REAL "taxpayer") money every month - most without specific agenda items detailing amounts intended, most without itemized budgets posted on their own Websites, if they even have them - and the accounting for them on the DONE sight is about 10 months behind.
Yeah, they spend a lot less money, but the CD14 CLARTS expenditures are also a lot less money than Council burns similarly.
Bottom line, this is personal. This is a Huizar-specific attack, ramped up and extended by a candidate who never did stand a chance, but is now just going "scorched-earth" on it.
"If I can't win, I'll make sure no one else can survive this either."
Admit it Rudy-goons. You're a hit squad for the walking dead "other" guy.
You got no case!
Nothing more.
5.23 Anybody who scans most City Hall agendas and knows what Pacheco did or didn't do is clearly not one of the "newbies". So, I have to assume you were on this site bashing Pacheco and Parra in past elections. But God forbid somebody disagrees or blasts Huizar and suddenly they are "goons" or rather "Rudi-goons".
Your comments about neighborhood councils are purely diversionary. My criticism is of Councilman Huizar, and for disagreeing with him, I am labelled a Rudi- goon". I can disagree with Huizar and still not support Martinez (or is that concept too hard to get your head around?).
By the way, taxpayer money is taxpayer money. CLARTS money is collected by people paid by taxpayers, administered by people paid for by taxpayers and clearly is for the benefit of taxpayers. What's not REAL about that?
5:23
If you scanned the Agendas you didn't see the transfers because they were not on the Agendas, they were hidden in the line items of the CAO reports.
You see, that's the secrecy you fail to understand or chose to ignore.
The Agendas themselves would never have revealed this minute detail since many of the transfers were located in Attachments to the CAO reports and not even in the body of the report. It doesn't get much deeper than that. He must of learned this trick from "just on the edge of legal" Pacheco.
I agree with an earlier post, why the secrecy?
Why not just do a motion to transfer this money since it was only five (5) additional transfers to his salary account after the first TWO MOTIONS?
Now, I want to know who got paid with this money and what kind of salaries is this office paying that it needs an extra million dollars??
I will hand it to you, you are hilarious when you say you saw these transfers on the Agenda when they were in Attachments to CAO reports. I am LMAO. Nothing personal, just funny as hell.
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