Saturday Hotsheet

With the City in a deep financial doo doo Los Angeles' elected leaders are being asked to share the pain but some of them are going kicking and screaming.  Ten of Los Angeles City Council members have agreed to some pay cut, five have not.  Newest member Paul Krekorian and President Eric Garcetti have agreed to a 10% pay cut. Krekorian's staff has also volunteered for pay and budget cuts and have given up all their City owned cars. The Mayor has agreed to a 16% cut while Controller Wendy Greuel is forgoing 7%.  However Councilman Bernard Parks and City Attorney Carmen Trutanich are among those refusing to cut their pay.

What is one reason to vote yes on the coming California ballot measure to legalize pot, according to CurbedLA? With legal pot in stores drug related violence in Mexico could lessen.

It was good for Hillary Clinton so why not for a neighborhood council? Silver Lake daVine reports that The Silver Lake Neighborhood Council will be open today for "listening." Whatever that means.

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Mayor Sam's Hotsheet for Tuesday

Oh no! Digital billboards featuring Ellen Degeneres are igniting fires of discontent, giving a Raison d'être to the Silver Lake Neighborhood Council for the first time since Jason Lyon stirred the pot.  In the meantime a cash-strapped City of Los Angeles has figured out how to make a buck off the situation.

David Horowitz' Front Page Magazine has a piece on Jamiel and Anita Shaw and their mission to pass Jamiel's law.  Another 23,000 signatures are needed by December 5th.  Your help is urgently needed to help make the goal.

All the votes are yet to be counted but Measure R is still inching towards passage.  LAist has a rundown of the wish list of public transit projects that politicians would like to build with the increased sales tax.  Question: what happens when the bad economy and rises in other taxes fails to bring in the expected revnue?

Goofy old liberal Bill Boyarsky - among those waiting for the New Deal and the second coming of Franklin Delano Roosevelt - thinks the election of Obama and the passage of big boondoggle taxpayer government works projects will be the water that lifts all boats. Problem is Bill, this isn't 1932 and the economy works a lot differently than when Duke Ellington sang It Don't Mean a Thing (If It Ain't Got That Swing).

Silver Lake Neighborhood Council the latest with "issues"

Neighborhood Councils with issues are becoming the norm. Witness this e-mail about the proposed cancelation of elections in the Silver lake NC to 2010.

DEMOCRACY ALERT!!!What would you think if members of the Bush Administration announced that the November election was cancelled, and they were going to just stay on for a few more years?

Would this be okay in Silver Lake?
Come to the Silver Lake Neighborhood Council meeting:Wednesday, July 2 at 7:00 PM Micheltorena School - 1511 Micheltorena St.VOTE to restore cancelled SLNC elections this year!!

Background: The Silver Lake Neighborhood Council voted at a special meeting to suspend all Board elections until 2010. This means that the terms for every Board member were extended by one or two years without even asking for input from you – the voters who elected them. (The L.A. City Clerk will administer all NC elections starting in 2010, which means that the SLNC had to choose between extending current terms and having its annual election in 2008. Having a 2008 election gives you more say in who serves on this board. It will also allow voters to choose new board members this year rather than having any vacancies filled by appointment by the board from now until 2010).

Many community members have publicly objected to this and demanded a 2008 election, including current and former SLNC board members and leaders from the Silver Lake Improvement Association, the Silver Lake Residents Association and CSSLR. The SLNC Board was given several opportunities to have an election this year, but still refused - arguing it would be too much work and too expensive.

In only 6 days, 182 Silver Lake stakeholders recently signed petitions forcing the Board to hold a community vote on whether to have 2008 elections.

Action: This is where you come in – come to the meeting on July 2 and VOTE (expected to be a quick show of hands to restore the democratic process). If enough of you can do this, it will force the SLNC to hold an election this year, as it has every year since it was created in 2003.

VOTE YES to return democracy and accountability to Silver Lake!For more information, please contact:
Dave Keitel at davekeitel@sbcgloba l.net or 213/247-4065
Vince Brook at vbrook@earthlink. net Susan Philips at sphilips4@aol. com
Marty Hittelman at martyhitt@aol. com
Maryann Kuk at marykuk@earthlink. net or 323/668-2643

Curbed LA reports that the "YES" group could not get the 2/3 vote to force elections this year.

......and people thought Lincoln Heights was dysfunctional.