Los Angeles Politics Hotsheet for Thursday
Some corporate takeovers don't go as smoothly as planned.
After what must have been one hell of a Koch binge, Republicans in Wisconsin blatantly violated the state's Open Meetings law and shoved through a modified Budget Reform Bill on Wednesday. Funny enough, there was nothing in this version of the Budget Reform Bill that had anything to do with balancing the budget, but rather had everything to do with busting the public unions by stripping them of collective bargaining rights. Expect a swift backlash from the unions, and court challenges up the ying-yang. Already in the works is a recall effort of Gov. Walker and the Republican Senators. This recall effort will not, I repeat, will not, be led by the transplanted Wisconsin wacko Phil Jennerjahn, so there may actually be a chance for success!
UPDATE; Protesters jam Capitol, Assembly vote delayed .
That cheering you're hearing is coming from the Van De Kamp's Coalition and everyone else that has suffered from the colossal mismanagement at the LACCD. Projects director, Larry Eisenberg, a focal point of the Times 6 part investigative series that exposed the fraud, waste, and abuse of $5.9 billion in construction bond funding, has been fired.
Ron Kaye is covering the "Cesspool On Vine", the CRA-City Council Approved developer give-away that is turning stomachs throughout the city. Of note; Councilman Krekorian was the sole vote against this sham!
We've just received this statement from Stephen Box;
After what must have been one hell of a Koch binge, Republicans in Wisconsin blatantly violated the state's Open Meetings law and shoved through a modified Budget Reform Bill on Wednesday. Funny enough, there was nothing in this version of the Budget Reform Bill that had anything to do with balancing the budget, but rather had everything to do with busting the public unions by stripping them of collective bargaining rights. Expect a swift backlash from the unions, and court challenges up the ying-yang. Already in the works is a recall effort of Gov. Walker and the Republican Senators. This recall effort will not, I repeat, will not, be led by the transplanted Wisconsin wacko Phil Jennerjahn, so there may actually be a chance for success!
UPDATE; Protesters jam Capitol, Assembly vote delayed .
That cheering you're hearing is coming from the Van De Kamp's Coalition and everyone else that has suffered from the colossal mismanagement at the LACCD. Projects director, Larry Eisenberg, a focal point of the Times 6 part investigative series that exposed the fraud, waste, and abuse of $5.9 billion in construction bond funding, has been fired.
Ron Kaye is covering the "Cesspool On Vine", the CRA-City Council Approved developer give-away that is turning stomachs throughout the city. Of note; Councilman Krekorian was the sole vote against this sham!
We've just received this statement from Stephen Box;
Friends and Family,
Our campaign for the City Council seat representing District 4 has come to a close and although we didn't prevail, I am proud of all that we have accomplished.
I'm proud to be part of a groundswell of grassroots candidates who rose up to challenge the status quo in a time of citywide budget crisis, resulting in contested races for all City Council seats up for election.
I'm proud to be a part of the citywide dialogue that resulted, one where we were able to position a vision for a well-planned, well-funded city that delivers services based on standards that we can depend on.
I'm proud to be part of a team of campaign volunteers that came from all walks, grabbing a hold of the common ground platform that represented residents, small business owners, budget hawks and land use activists, all committed to partnering in greatness.
I'm proud to be a part of a community network of supporters who are experts in their respective fields, all committed to working together to move Los Angeles forward, a journey that started before this campaign and will continue with increasing momentum.
I'm proud to be a part of a campaign team that joined me on an inspirational and aspirational campaign, one that stayed positive and focused on the goal, partnering with voters to create a better Los Angeles.
Most of all, I'm proud to live in Los Angeles, a city filled with people who encouraged me, who contributed to the campaign, who joined us by walking precincts and calling voters, and who reminded us at every turn that Los Angeles is truly a great city.
Enci and I look forward to the continuing journey as we partner with you in greatness.
Thank you for all you do!
Stephen BoxLabels: Cesspool on Vine, Koch whores, laccd, Larry Eisenberg, paul krekorian, stephen box
Posted by Unknown @ 3/10/2011 12:00:00 AM
30 Comments:
The LACCD cannot get its house in order until the Board of Trustees publicly take responsibility for 9 years of its own failed oversight of the bond construction program.
At yesterday's Board meeting, too many of the Board members and Chancellor LaVista kept saying the District needed to get the "good word" out about the new buildings constructed. There are some good buildings and designs -- but at what cost? How much more did everything cost because of the gold plated subcontractor markup of every employee working for the system? It's gross. It's obscene.
Until Mona Field stops trying to sweep the scandal under the rug, we will call for her resignation or removal. The same of each and every Board member that refuses to acknowledge that the neglect, fraud, and abuse is MASSIVE -- totaling more than $100 million.
The Van de Kamps Coalition
"The cheering you're hearing"
I'M NOWHERE NEAR WISCONSIN, AND I'M CHEERING LOUDLY FOR THE END OF THIS UNION.
BRAVO GOVERNOR WALKER!
Someone has to stand up to budget deficit causes, and he is one of the early leaders. Sorry if you're unable to understand why, Joe. I am not going to invest the time to explain it to you.
It's too bad that Red Spot and Phil Jennerjahn aren't men enough to say that they were totally wrong, and that they simply did not have their hand on the pulse of the people.
In Jennerjahn's case, he kept throwing Steven Box under the bus in order to tear him down as a person. Then, Phil quit on day one, since he couldn't get a single signature for his petition.
And when Box started to get traction against LaBonge, Phil tried to jump on-board. Finally, in true Phil Jennerjahn style, the person he chose to support didn't come in second. He came in LAST.
Joe....let the unions file all the lawsuits in the world......they will NOT get this reversed. Unlike the Democratic hysterical knee jerk style of governing....Gov. Walker, I'm sure, has this legally covered all the way around, otherwise he would have not done it. What you hear from Wisc. is CRYING!! Waaaaaaaaaaa!
Public employees have only had the right to form unions for a very short time, given labors' history. In California, the right of Public Employees to form or join a union was one of Jerry Brown's landmark decisions - talk about irony. Before the 70's, most unionists were trade laborers or service industry. SEIU, the "service" employee union, capitalized on this "recession proof" new market of rather complacent public employees. Organizing them was as easy as holding a tea party - much easier than the rough and tumble organizing that went on in the mills of the south and the factories of the north. Soon, these public employees became the "bread and butter" sectors for the union fat cats. They got lazy, got fat (Former AFL-CIO head Sweeney came from SEIU)and now are getting their asses kicked.
Conservative capitalists should celebrate. The unionizing (because it certainly wasn't organizing) of public employees is leading to the downfall of the whole union movement.
Take away the right of public employees to organize and the unon movement will be great once again. If that were the case I'd be all for privatizing public sector jobs - the only way to be a union memeber.
Elections have consequences!!!! The PEOPLE of Wisconsin voted for the legislature they now have. These union thugs are trying to overturn the results of an election. To use Obama's smarmy comment...."we won" now get over it!!
CUT LAPD BUDGET AND MAKE THEM START USING CURRENT RESOURCES MORE EFFICIENTLY: I just saw two LAPD cop cars at a Santa Monica specialty shop, looking over merchandise at a leisurely pace before making some purchases.
My first question was, "Why are you using LAPD vehicles to do personal shopping? Are you picking up your laundry while you are at it? How about picking up a movie at Blockbuster?"
The cop tried to defend the personal shopping in LAPD uniform and badge and vehicle (paid for by taxpayers out of the general fund) by saying, "I just work across the street, over there (pointing towards L.A., since the cops were shopping in Santa Monica).
I asked a few more questions regarding LAPD vehicles being used for personal shopping chores in Santa Monica, while on duty...yes, they were on duty.
The cop kept trying to minimize the action as no big deal.
And, finally, this is a routine occurrence as I have witnessed this upon several occasions, recently.
I have the photos to prove it.
Captain Grant of LAPD Pacific Division, can you please have a discussion with your crew on shopping in Santa Monica for personal items while on duty in LAPD vehicles. (Gas ain't free and I thought we were short on cops and budget. What was happening that they could have prevented with their presence in the neighborhood, while they were shopping in Santa Monica, Captain Grant?)
It would be funny to see Phil Jennerjahn return to his Wisconsin family home, and start speaking up about the unions.
He would get at least as much disrespect there, as he does here.
The Los Angeles Times appears to be nearly as much in shock as some of the challengers that tried to boost up with their endorsements.
Two days after the City elections, almost nothing in the way of analysis, etc. appears on their pages.
Other than a rather perfunctory "incumbents lead" roundup the night of ... you'd think they were still awaiting results from the Clerk.
This continues to reinforce their irrelevance to the City's political-scape.
This is such BS. Walker claims the state is broke but hands out millions in tax breaks to corporate cronies. Then he tries to make it up by stripping the unions and picking on public service employees (you know, police, fireman, teachers). Run him out of town Wisconsin!
Here's a little "P.S." note for the combo Krekorian-groupies/Huizar-haters who inhabit this blog full time.
No "spin" just raw numbers and percentages.
Based on Tuesday's voting:
Percentage of registered voters in CD2 who voted FOR Paul K.
8.1 percent
Percentage of registered voters in CD14 who voted FOR Jose Huizar:
10.0 percent
Get it? Finally, maybe? Jose Huizar, even with the rabid challenge and mudslinging is STILL almost 20 percent MORE popular among voters in CD14 than your "hero" of the people, Paul K. is in his.
SO, let the Rid Spurts of the world keep fantasizing that Huizar is hated or declining in support. It AIN'T true. Never has been.
Within HIS district, he's in better shape than most other incumbents on City Council.
SORRY!
Yeah, exactly how is it that a guy with no backing and no money, like Krekorian's opponent, still gets 1 out of every 4 votes against someone Mayor Sam's seems to think is the second coming of Christ, and the future saviour of L.A.
Maybe it is true that while there is an "incumbent" advantage, there's also a 20-25 percent "anti-incumbent" vote no matter what you do, or how well you do it. That's a given.
So any challengers on the ballot should really only be seen as "winning" the not-automatic votes about that range (which is pretty sad in some cases - only 5-10 percent more of the total).
You're bragging about 10% - my, what low exectations. But that's about par for Huizar numbers: 60% dropout rate during his tenure; a 1000+ % staff turnover rate; $1.3 missing in CLARTS funds; but the biggest number of all - 1, as in one FBI investigation.
12:32
No, I'm waiting for the Mayor Sam's bloggers to BRAG about their grass roots "messiah" Paul K. only getting 8 PERCENT of registered voters.
Hooooo, ha!
(You JUST don't get it, do you? Hate blinds. Huizar is, within his OWN district - which is what really matters - the most POPULAR incumbent on City Council).
Stick THAT in your pipe, along with all your silly made-up stats and numbers that do NOT matter - lace it with a little of the medical pot from Rudy Rich's friends dispensaries, and then just KEEP ON believing that he's not.
Bring yourself some PEACE, because a self-fund $300,000 campaign (nearly $400,000 w/ IEs) STILL didn't put a dent in Huizar's popularity in CD14.
I'm going keep checking back to Mayor Sam's and see just how quickly that FAKED "FBI investigation" that Rudy tried to snow CD14 people with disappears from the haters' radar.
And it will... just like "JIMMY HAHN's GOING TO JAIL."
BS-squared, all you EVER read here.
When local history actually looks back on this, Rudy Martinez will actually go down as the least successful second place challenger to run against Huizar - in terms of outcome versus effort and financing.
Alvin "DOH" Parra, the Homer Simpson of L.A. politics according to the L.A. Times - who got NO media coverage, collected only about $100K on his own, fared better against Huizar, and had less of a track record (only about 18 months) of Huizar's to attack.
Pacheco did better than either one, when you factor in their were 8 other challengers all stealing votes from each other in 2005.
11:20
The silence among traditional media in the City is deafening, especially among those points that covered City Council races in one form or another just about every day since the first of the year.
Not even updates, in some case, on the final results. (I can read more about the City of Bell and Wisconsin since Tuesday than anything about L.A. City politics, since Tuesday in media that has the words "Los Angeles" in it's title).
Do you suppose the Times editorial writers are beginning to get some clue just how out-of-touch with the City they really are?
12:32
I actually expected, after all the hype, that Rudy Martinez could have maybe pulled within a single-digit differential of Huizar. (Beating him was impossible, but with all the lies Hacopian put out on Rudy's behalf, I knew some would stick - with the simpleminded folk).
Instead, Rudy ran 28 points behind.
... Barack Obama beat McCain by 5 (FIVE) points just two years ago, and liberal media, especially, proclaimed in a LANDSLIDE!
If that was a landslide, this must have been a what? Tsunami and earthquake combined?
(LA Weakly: "Huizar DESTROYS Martinez")
At least now they're paying attention.
1:06 p.m.
It's actually worse than that. With three times as much money and twice as long to campaign (Parra didn't announce until Nov.), Martinez only got about 1,100 votes more than Alvin.
(And I'd bet Michael Turdjillo's self-immolation was worth about 500 sympathy votes for Rudy, alone).
12:32
Be honest, if Huizar won 64 to 36 percent in a 60, 80 or 100 percent voter turnout (which doesn't even happen in presidential races) you'd still be whining and moaning.
You obviously just don't like DEMOCRACY, except when it means your choice wins.
11:20
In order for newspaper like the L.A. Times to look back and analyze this week's election, they'd have to begin by retracing their own steps and figuring out just how they got so far off the beaten path that both their "objective" reporting and their subjective editorializing propped up totally unqualified non-starters as viable City Council candidates.
Where do these people actually live, San Bernardino?
2:20
Since when is a 10% mandate democracy?
With a million dollar war chest, you'd think the two time incumbent would do something about voter turnout. But keep the masses stupid and being re-elected is just that much easier.
If Huizar were truly engaged in community empowerment, he should have gotten 25,000 votes.
LOOK AT THE PERCENTAGES. THIS IS WHERE CHANGE NEEDS TO HAPPEN. THERE ARE 80% OF THE VOTERS WHO SAT ON THE BENCH. IF 30% VOTED AND FOLLOWED THE RIGHT CANDIDATES WE WOULD HAVE MADE IRREVERSEABLE HISTORY. THE TIME IS NOW TO ORGANIZE AGAINST THE PEOPLE WHO VOTED AGAINST THIS CITY. THE UNIONS,CIVIC LEADERS NEIGHBORHOOD COUNCIL PRESIDENTS, AN EXAMPLE OF ALL WHO WORKED AGAINST REFORM CAN BE FOUND AND SHOULD BE COPIED ON MITCH ENGLANDERS WEBSITE. THESE ARE THE PEOPLE WHO FIGHT REFORM AND CAUSE YOUR SERVICES TO BE CUT. THESE ARE THE PEOPLE RESPONSIBLE FOR YOUR KIDS PLAYING FOR THE REST OF THEIR LIVES. CHANNEL YOUR ANGER AT THEM. BRING THEM DOWN.
Gatto truthers in the house. Or Higby's favorite Martini blogger. You know Trujillo and Uli do not ever dis on Krekorian.
Nor would the Bisani Pizza Brigade defend Huizar.
Who HATES Krekorian and LOVES Huizar?
That greaser from Los Feliz I mean Silverlake I mean Echo Park. Oh, hell.
Further evidence of just how badly Martinez did. He only won 4 precincts -- all in Eagle Rock. He managed to lose his home (at least his temporary home) precinct 102 to 78. Huizar, on the other hand won his home precinct in Boyle Heights 116 to 32.
Phil is an insignificant paranoid freedom hating crackpot. Wisconsin gave him a one way bus ticket to LA years ago and told him never to come back.
3:33
On what bizarro planet.
NO ONE get 25,000 votes in a Council district EVER, not even the unopposed, not even HALF that.
And, YEAH, 10 PERCENT of the registered voters is HUGE democracy (when the loser that's been trashing you for most of a year only get's FIVE (5) PERCENT of the registered voters in the district.
HELL, I thought Rudy rapped on EVERY DAMN door in the district? Obviously NO ONE WAS HOME - for him anyway.
Better luck in GLENDALE!
HOOOOO, ha!
3:37
You silly number crunchers with your little calculators, all following the "WACKO Walter" Moore math books that led him to embarrassing defeats, just never get it.
If TWICE or even THREE times as many people (who opposed the incumbents) went to the polls, then TWICE, THREE, or even FOUR TIMES as many of those SUPPORTING him would ALSO go out and vote.
How do you figure otherwise? Do you have "Huizar Hater" media points that will JUST relay one side, and not the other?
(Well, other than THIS one?)
Are their mailing houses that will guarantee that ONLY the anti-incumbent news goes out, and the supporters of people like Huizar will just SIT by and not rally even MORE of their own?
As it was, Martinez milked and drama-queened a LOT more media coverage than his candidacy ever deserved (proof of that is in the votes).
Anyway you imaginatively SLICE and DICE it, it comes out about the same.
In CD14, if 45,000 people had voted, instead of 15,000, then Huizar would have had 30,000 votes in the end and Rudy - 15,000, and the ONLY difference would have been a LOT more wasted money, for the same results.
Do you really imagine, in any drug-induced fantasy you've created for yourself that ONLY one side would show... or that MOST of those non-voters are on the ANTI-incumbent side (they're NOT!)
If Rudy Martinez had had JUST as much money as Huizar - or even MORE (and he HAD a chance to have $100K more - matching funds, but declined it - DOH!) what EXACTLY could he have done any differently?
Papered our mailboxes with TWICE as many mailers? Had people knock on every door TWICE a day? Robo-call people into submission until they tore their phones out of the wall?
He had already said EVERYTHING he had to say FIVE times a week in my mail.
How many different ways can you say "we deserve better" or "I served in the Nat'l Guard" or "I own businesses and hire people" (mostly PART timers with no benefits, but...)
Or would he go on radio, and tell people "I don't know what to fix, but I CAN FIX IT!"
Pfaaaaaah.
It's NOT about numbers, OR turnout -- UNLESS you have a message that MEANS something to most people. And the BIGGEST part of that message has to be that the current CM is doing a bad job for you (OH, and that part of the message probably also needs to be TRUE, and not something Eric Hacopian invented in the shower the day before he bid on Rudy's campaign business).
3:33
Okay, you're hopeless, but just for the fun of it and to tweak the haters even more, how about this GEM:
Huizar got a MUCH HIGHER PERCENTAGE of the voters that COULD vote for him (registered) than ALL other council candidates in Tuesday's election... incumbents, OR challengers!
Every OTHER re-elected incumbent get WAY less than 10 percent of the registered in his district - most ONLY got 7-8 percent of the people that COULD have voted for them... (Cardenas only got about FIVE percent of the registered there). Even in the better financed and heavily contested Dist. 8 race, Parks ONLY pulled in 8 percent.
AND there are still absentees being counted... SO, there's STILL more coming.
EAT IT! It's a FACT!
Huizar's vote was OVERWHELMING, byevery rational standard.
5:19
That still isn't representative democracy. Imagine if Huizar were a true leader and spent all his ill gotten money on mobilizing the community - his electorate - instead of attacking a weak ass candidate like Martinez.
He'll never get that smell off of him - just like Tony Villar.
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