City Hall Censoring Sexual Harassment Reporting on High-Ranking LAFD Karen Bass Fundraiser

By Daniel Guss

@TheGussReport - Well that didn't last long.

Despite syrupy promises of transparency and integrity by newly-minted interim City Council President Paul Krekorian in the wake of an ongoing City Hall racism scandal and stalemate with the two remaining Councilmembers who refuse to resign, ongoing efforts to relentlessly censor and retaliate against this column are in full bloom.

It's amazing what good inside sources and three recent appearances on "The John and Ken Show" on KFI AM 640 will do to stoke City Hall paranoia as it loses its grip on its secrecy habits just a few weeks ahead of a general election.

The rest of my free column is over on Substack.  While you're there, sign-up for my free newsletter and follow me on The Twitters @TheGussReport.

Why Eric Garcetti and Mike Feuer Should Cancel Themselves

 By Daniel Guss

@TheGussReport - LA's Buffoon Bros of Miscarriage and Corruption, Mayor Eric Garcetti and City Attorney Mike Feuer, should spend the coming holiday season reshuffling their future plans.

Eric Garcetti and Mike Feuer

Photo Credit: LA Times

In Garcetti's case, he should pick up the house phone and ring President Joe Biden to withdraw his nomination to become the next U.S. Ambassador to India.  Feuer should withdraw from the Mayor's race and see whether any of the other candidates would welcome his endorsement.  If those candidates are smart, they'll politely decline and change their phone number.

Garcetti and Feuer are more likely than not on the verge of being booted from those pursuits and instead creating mortifying footnotes for their forever Wikipedia pages.  

Better for them to quit rather than being publicly shown the door.

Beyond Garcetti's comprehensive failure as al calde of the second largest American city, everyone from his right-hand man Rick Jacobs to his disgraced former chief of staff Ana Guerrero (and those who covered up for them at the LAPD and City Attorney's office) have been exposed for the bullies and harassers many have long-known them to be, as shown by a series of mortifying exposés and depositions.  It is not possible that these issues have escaped the notice of the FBI and Biden advisors. 

The point is that Garcetti is responsible for all that literally took place right in front of him, and more. The buck is supposed to stop with a chief executive, but Garcetti hasn't taken ownership for any of it, including his welcoming Guerrero back into his office after a lengthy suspension for indiscriminately abusing everyone from little-known locals to historic and accomplished women of color like Dolores Huerta.

As for things that took place right in front of Garcetti.....

Rick Jacobs, Eric Garcetti and others

Photo Credit: LA Times

In fact, logic suggests that someone in the White House, perhaps chief of staff Ron Klain, may soon dial up Garcetti and "politely suggest" that Garcetti do exactly as I recommend.

That way, Garcetti can take his rightful place alongside his inglorious predecessors, like "The 11% Percent Mayor" Antonio Villaraigosa and traffic court judge James Hahn.  He can join some corporate boards, teach a college class and be shown on the 11pm sports report cheering on the Dodgers and Lakers.

I left the Rams out of that thought, because, despite Garcetti's untruthful claims that he "brought the NFL back to LA," they in fact play in the world's greatest stadium in a city he never represented; Inglewood, California.  Sure, Inglewood is in "LA," but that's LA County, where Garcetti has never been an elected official. 

Garcetti failed to get that stadium built in downtown LA as Farmer's Field, though he squandered much time posturing about it, as I pointed out in the Huffington Post a few years back.

And that's the rosier of the two futures outlined in this column.

Our crystal ball says things are much bleaker for Mike Feuer.

It is delusional that someone who is being investigated by the State Bar of California and whose office was raided by the FBI and whose legal hire, Paul Paradis, agreed this week to plead guilty to a $2.2 million kickback scheme while running that scam under the auspices of Feuer's office, thinks he will be elected to succeed Garcetti as Mayor!

Maybe delusional isn't the right word.  Nuts.  Feuer would have to be nuts to believe that.

Mike Feuer

Photo Credit: KTLA

But it's so much worse than that for The Frazzled 'stache of LA City Hall.   

Despite his assertions to the contrary, the U.S. Department of Justice says that Feuer's office knew that Paradis astonishingly represented both the plaintiff and defendant in the scandalous LADWP / PricewaterhouseCoopers lawsuit.

That alone should result in a suspension of Feuer's law license, if not out and out disbarment, even if he didn't personally profit from the bribery, which could include campaign donations to his nascent mayoral campaign.

And yes, I do speculate that Feuer has already spoken with white collar criminal defense law firms to potentially represent him.  One would have to be a nuts (there's that word again) to be raided by the FBI and not immediately pick up the phone to find one.

But to think he still has even a remote chance of becoming mayor?  

Come on.

Then again, maybe Feuer's counting on LA making the same dumb choices for mayor as it has for the past 20 years with Hahn, Villaraigosa and Garcetti.

Hmmmph.  Perhaps he's on to something.

Nevermind, then. We'll simply say this.  If Feuer runs, he will finish with fewer votes than any other major candidate and perhaps even fewer than the spectacular 9,115 votes hauled-in (without spending a dime) by Venice street performer David "Zuma Dogg" Saltsburg in 2009, when he finished in 4th place in a field of ten.   

That's the over/under for Feuer should he stay in the race. Nine thousand one hundred and fifteen votes.  We will see whether Feuer gets fewer than Zuma Dogg.

Of course, there's more to this story than just that.   

What about the names that keep Mike Feuer up at night and whether and when they might resurface?  That's precisely why Feuer's deputy at City Council meetings, one Strefan Fauble, has established a pattern and practice of illegally censoring this column from participating in the meetings of late and his peers continually failing to cure and correct such abuses, as outlined in upcoming complaints, plural, to the State Bar of California.

(Daniel Guss, MBA, was runner-up for the 2020 Los Angeles Press Club journalism award for Best Online Political Commentary and was a runner-up in 2021 too. He has contributed to CityWatch, KFI AM-640, iHeartMedia, 790-KABC, Cumulus Media, KCRW, Huffington Post, Los Angeles Daily News, Los Angeles Magazine, Movieline Magazine, Emmy Magazine, Los Angeles Business Journal, Pasadena Star News, Los Angeles Downtown News, and The Los Angeles Times in its Sports, Opinion and Entertainment Sections and Sunday Magazine among other publishers. Tell your friends to follow him on The Twitters @TheGussReport, and DM him there to join his distribution list for early story notifications, tips and more.)

LA Times Silent on Nury Martinez' COVID Hypocrisy, Censorship

By Daniel Guss

@TheGussReport - It was clear early on that when LA City Council chose Nury Martinez to succeed the perpetually self-dealing Herb Wesson as its president, she was disinclined to do the one thing that Wesson did well: Lead.  

(Photo: LA City Council President Nury Martinez pontificates about masking, but needs practice on proper usage, though she did have time to get her name printed on hers.)

While Wesson led through intimidation, it ultimately led to his getting trounced by Holly Mitchell in his subsequent run to become an LA County Supervisor. Martinez' brand of leadership was quickly identified as faulty, as well.

As I wrote in this column at that time:

"Gadfly Patricia McAllister had just about enough with Nury's failure to embrace responsibility, letting it rip with this take: 'I want to say that Ms. Martinez, you brought your mother and everybody here and we gave you a good welcome. You're not woman enough to be up on that podium? (Ryu) is not the president. . . If you want to be with the boys, you got to do your job, okay? You're supposed to be at that podium, ma'am. . . Now you be a woman and stand-up for women and do your job. . . Now you wanna run with the boys, you gotta be like the boys, okay. . . Now you wanna get that kind of respect, you be like the boys. Get that skirt off, put some pants on and do your job.'" 

McAllister made a valid if abrasively colorful point: Being LA City Council president means leadership, including running meetings, agenda management and drinking up criticism rather than being thin-skinned and just embracing the "historic!" title of the first Latina in that role.  Pat Russell was LA's first female Council president from 1983-87.  (Is it still okay for us to use the word "female?")

So let's look closer at Martinez' recent and ongoing heavy-handedness with censorship.

She is now armed with a COVID requirement for most indoor places in LA but continues to use the pandemic to silence the public, especially her critics, who want to attend Council meetings.

Over the past several weeks, Council's in-person meetings have resumed in LA City Hall's John Ferraro Chambers. But "in-person" in this instance means only maskless City Councilmembers and their staff.

Martinez continues to exclude the public from attending in-person, masked or not, even with proof of vaccination and has refused to respond to requests to explain her policy.

Why do you suppose that is?

Most Councilmembers have been maskless at their recent meetings, bellowing within feet of one another, and not just during their turn to speak. Why isn't the public allowed to attend those same meetings maskless, provided they have proof of vaccination?

Maskless Mike Bonin

Maskless Kevin DeLeon

Maskless Paul Koretz

Maskless Mitch O'Farrell

Maskless Mark Ridley-Thomas and Maskless Paul Krekorian

Maskless Gil Cedillo

Maskless Bob Blumenfield

It is because barring even the vaccinated public lets Martinez censor criticism by forcing everyone to attend via Zoom where she and those she assigns can exert control with the push of a button, even though she and her colleagues richly deserve the criticism which is an inherent part of a politician's life.  

In fact, criticizing politicians is an inherently American tradition.

Her unwillingness to face and absorb criticism is another example of Martinez' failed leadership. She and Deputy City Attorney Strefan Fauble pick and choose whose phone numbers get called to speak during Council meetings and at their smaller Committee meetings. 

Strefan Fauble

More importantly, either they or their designees choose which phone numbers do not get chosen to participate.

Further, Fauble, City Hall's School-Marm-in-Residence, feigns not knowing which item the chosen speaker is addressing and consistently talks over callers who are on-topic in order to eat away at their precious one minute to speak. He also randomly disconnects their calls rather than letting people who might not have his law school polish make their own points in their own ways.

That's what we call punching down at the little guy.  

Then there's the retaliation. 

Fauble, who has a forthcoming complaint to the State Bar of California for, among other things, threatening to have this columnist arrested for simply attempting to use his duly issued LAPD press pass at a Council meeting, also drags his feet on responding to public records requests endeavoring to determine which callers called-in first to meetings so they can be compared to callers he allowed to speak who did not call-in as early.

Perhaps Mr. Fauble forgot about a certain 1st Amendment lesson while at the University of Texas Law School. Or perhaps he didn't and feels he has free reign to violate others' rights.

What Fauble doesn't forget to do is continue to maliciously expose this columnist's personal data in public records requests for the umpteenth time. Cue the next claim and lawsuit.

That leads us to the question of the day: Why hasn't the LA Times pointed out Martinez' ongoing censorship by refusing to allow the public to attend Council meetings? That's what its news reporters like David Zahniser, Dakota Smith and Emily Alpert Reyes should have reported months ago.

And why hasn't the El Segundo Times Editorial Board called for Martinez' attendance ban to end so constituents and community stakeholders have the same direct access to the meetings enjoyed by Martinez, her 14 Council colleagues, Fauble and their minions?

That is, after all, the point of a news organization.  

Where are you on this, LA Times? Isn't that "the type of journalism" that you promise when pleading for the public to spend 99-cents for an introductory subscription?

If the Times doesn't give a rat's petard about the public, why should the public feel any better about subscribing to the Times? 

(Presently using mi amigo Scott's sign-in until our new Mayor Sam 2.0 tech matters are ironed out)