Los Angeles Politics Hotsheet for Monday

Friday, Mayor Villaraigosa was selected to serve as the President of the US Conference of Mayors.  First perk, an appearance on Meet the Press.

In a move that would delight Ron Swanson of TV's Parks and Recreation, the City of Los Angeles is considering private management for the Los Angeles Zoo.  LA is the last of the big cities to manage a city zoo; and the costs are climbing too high for the cash strapped local government.

On the other hand, the Clowncil is advocating public ownership for the beleaguered Los Angeles Dodgers Major League Baseball team. The Daily Breeze editorializes the idea is a fantasy, indeed, it is.

Conan O'Brien is serious about renaming a run-down street in Van Nuys after himself.  Councilman Paul Krekorian, in whose district the street is in, has offered to work with the ginger headed TV comic.

Mayor Sam's Hotsheet for Monday

Mayor Villaraigosa broached the issue of privatizing the Los Angeles Zoo and the idea is gaining traction.  The Daily News agrees it's something that should be looked at.  Ultimately a zoo is a theme park or at best an educational instutition.  Neither is the job of municipal government.  Therefore the zoo should be turned over to Disney or perhaps the World Wildlife Fun to run. The next step would be to send large animals to preserves and replace those exihibits with virtual ones that can just as easily educate as penning up animals where they don't belong and don't prosper.  Los Angeles could actually set the pace for the 21st century zoo.

Ron Kaye marks the one year anniversary of his termination as editor of the Los Angeles Daily News.  "I got no regrets," Kaye says as after 365 days in his new role of blogger and agent provacateur.

So much for President Barack Obama's claims to be a man of the people.  Like most Democrats and Republicans he's all about the connected.  His recent town hall meeting in Los Angeles was supposed to be open to the people, instead, as the Daily News reports, most of the tickets went to Democratic elected officials, their staffs and major party fat cats.  Spin that one Jim Alger!

Blogger Cindy Lu at Loteria Chicana made her first ever batch of frijoles olla. Response from her mother: “Wow. Ya te puedes casar.” Of course that means that Cindy's mom is satisfied Cindy is now ready to get married.  Moms are the same in any culture; can't we all just get along?

LA Weekly notes that L.A. Superior Court Judge Peter Lichtman has ordered a Catholic religious order to make hundreds of personnel files public. The judge's order is part of a $28 million settlement between alleged victims of clergy sexual abuse and the Franciscans. The lawsuit stems from allegations against Franciscan priests who are accused of sexually abusing dozens of boys and girls going back to the 1950s.

Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa is actualy doing a photo op that doesn't have to do with nightclubs, turning off the lights or dancing with cartoon characters.  The Mayor will speak about the city budget at an appearance before several neighborhood councils and other community organizations Monday evening in West Los Angeles.

By the way does this conflict with this?

The City of Los Angeles spent nearly 40 years trying to make an airport work in Palmdale and could not do it.  So it makes sense to let a smaller, more efficient city take a shot at it. The City of Palmdale has voted to create an airport commission and department to manage and get Palmdale Regional Airport finally up and running.

Would someone actually run against Council Member Benard Parks as he perhaps seeks his third and final term in 2011? Possibly Assembly Speaker Karen Bass according to one blogger.

In the meantime Parks is pushing a city law, similar to a Los Angeles County measure, that would place civil penalties on the parents of under age graffiti criminals.  Good idea.

Blogger Flap, the ultra-right wing dentist, posted up an item that featured a Twitter tweet supposedly posted by Meghan McCain calling Rush Limbaugh fat.  I was about to call Ms. McCain to task for being a hypocrite as I had defended her when blowtard "commentator" Laura Ingraham could only challenge McCain's calls for a more big tent Republican party by referring to her weight.  However, the leading Republican sadist has now come out and admitted that the tweet is a hoax, under the guise of parody.  Good going Flap.  Anyone who has this man's fingers in their mouth needs to question their sanity.

Franklin Avenue reports bad news for both Walter Moore and Rick Dees.  Movin 93.9, which flipped from country to adult contemporary and brought Dees on board three years ago, is going Spanish language.  Oops.

Mayor Sam's Hotsheet for Monday

Supporters of the Los Angeles Zoo's efforts to keep on track the multi-million dollar effort to construct a controversial elephant exhibit thought that they had lost the battle and the votes needed on the City Council to keep the elephant pen from being shut down.  Then a white knight in the form of Global Crossing founder and Wall Street rainmaker Gary Winnick came to their rescue.  Winnick hired crisis management guru Mike Sitrick to turn it around for them.  Sitrick who handled PR for Paris Hilton during her county jail days and Rush Limbaugh during his pill popping phase got right to work and, according to insiders, managed to turn Bill Rosendahl to the dark side bringing along Jose Huizar and Ed Reyes and securing the Zoo a win.  The bill: tipsters say $250,000.


Mayoral Candidate David "Zuma Dogg" Saltsburg will be interviewed by KABC Talkradio AM 790 host Doug McIntyre Monday at 9:30 a.m.  By the way if any other Mayoral candidates want to send us over their media appearances we'll be glad to post them.

Lots of hand wringing by paperweight winners over the LA Times decision to axe it's "California" section and move local news to the main section.  However Ron Kaye, a blogger who's actually run daily metropolitan papers, says that's not a bad thing.  Kaye opines "The Times becoming a Los Angeles newspaper could be the best thing for the city. The community needs a powerful, credible voice to stand up for the common good, the greater good, to passionately tell the stories of who we are and how we could do better."  In his hand wringing our favorite paperweight winner keeps making the claim that by getting rid of the California section, the Times can print its Calendar entertainment section at night, hence keeping it more newsy.  However, Ed Padgett, a blogger who has actually printed a newspaper explains how the paper is actually printed.  Folks this is the kind of reportage that wins Pulitzers. 


The LA Weekly reports that Mayor Villaraigosa and Southern California Congressman Xavier Becerra apparently didn't rate invitations to President Obama's Superbowl party at the White House.  But guess who did: Senator John McCain, but apparently the former Republican Presidential candidate was not able to make it.

From the weekend:

• Jasmyne Cannick on Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa and the Missing Councilmembers 
• Candidate Adeena Bleich Stumps in CD5

City Parks Suffer Dangerous Budget Cut

The Daily News today reported that a result of the Mayor’s all-out assault on Los Angelenos in the form of budget cuts and fee increases will result in serious losses of vital services in City parks. The paper points to two Rec and Parks losses in particular – less clean restrooms and a 50% cut in Park Rangers.

Most people jump right on the mental image of an unclean restroom, but the reality of this Citywide cut is that the far greater loss of the two is actually the Park Rangers.

Park Rangers are perhaps the most recognizable image of any parks service in the United States. However, LA City Park Rangers are far more than an icon. With the increased gang violence and general unrest throughout the City, more specialized park security is a must. L.A. City Park Rangers are fully qualified, POST-certified peace officers. Perhaps even more importantly, Park Rangers are also firefighters, search and rescue professionals, emergency management specialists, paramedics, wildlife specialists, educators, mediators, and community policing specialists. For those who are unhappy with the generous salaries some City employees pull down, Park Rangers are also underpaid relative to other City jobs requiring full peace officer standing. This, plus the fact that there are tons of open peace officer positions in this City, just about guarantees that being a Park Ranger in Los Angeles isn't just a job, but it must be a vocation.

On any given day in at least one of this City’s 400+ parks, Rangers put their unique combination of specialized skills to use on the public’s behalf. During the Griffith Park fire, every Park Ranger in the City demonstrated extreme dedication to their vocation by working more than 95 hours straight. The Rangers’ intimate knowledge of the park was absolutely vital to controlling the May 8, 2007 inferno. It isn’t discussed much in the wake of the usual, well-deserved accolades given to the LAFD, but those closest to the situation know that it was a heroic stand at Bee Rock by Park Ranger firefighters that halted the northeastward advance of that fire. Park Ranger firefighters used their intimate knowledge of the park to determine that this physical location was absolutely key to stopping the fire, and they made the stand that did it.

So here we are with a summer fire season widely predicted to be one of the worst on record nearly upon us. Cutting almost 50% of a single division that is as important to this City as the Park Rangers are not only makes no sense, but it may seriously endanger the lives of the 20 million people who visit Los Angeles parks annually.

The recent mauling of patrons by a Siberian Tiger at the San Francisco Zoo brings up another point. The Los Angeles Zoo is inside of Griffith Park, and the Zoo is far from impervious to animal escapes. The combination of emergency management and wildlife expertise that Park Rangers possess would make them invaluable if such a thing ever happened here. As an aside, it is interesting to note that current SF Zoo Director Manuel Mollinedo, under whose watch the horrific maulings occurred, was a past General Manager of Recreation and Parks in Los Angeles as well as a Director of the Los Angeles Zoo during a time that many of the exhibit enclosures were upgraded, ostensibly to code. Hmmm...


Since they have all the money and resources, I guess the Mayor is assuming the Office of Public Safety will take care of us all. But as was pointed out in an earlier article detailing the creation and performance to-date of OPS, their promise was enticing but their carry-through has been far from optimum, or even adequate for that matter. And Rec and Parks, who is legally mandated to provide security in City parks, has little to no control over OPS which is organized within an entirely different City department.

On May 1st, there will be massive immigration demonstrations in downtown Los Angeles. If they repeat what they did in 2005, 2006, and 2007, the Office of Public Safety will pull every single officer to a man from City parks, libraries, and the Zoo and deploy them all downtown. This means that on May Day, a traditional day to celebrate the coming of Spring, the only peace officers protecting the public in 400+ City parks will be Park Rangers. 50% less Park Rangers, that is, if no one challenges the Mayor’s budget.

It's ironic that also on May 1st, the City's Budget and Finance Committee will hold the hearing on the Mayor's Budget for the Department of Recreation and Parks. So y'all come on downtown May 1 -- skip work, see the protesters and OPS in action firsthand, and give the committee your input on the $cut$ to Rec and Parks while surrounded by a hundred thousand or so of your fellow Angelenos. ...Democracy in action! WooHoo!