Los Angeles Politics Hotsheet for Thursday

Egads! The well heeled liberal suburbanites of Beverly Hills (you remember - swimmin' pools, movie stars) are aghast that choo-choo trains with hordes of non-Whites aboard will run underneath their mansions as part of the route of Mayor V's Subway to the Sea. Joining the fight to make sure no such travesty happens is none other than County Stupidvisor Zev Yaroslavsky.  Yikes.

Read more »

Los Angeles Politics Hotsheet for Tuesday

Well, well, well.  Guess who spent $50 million to save $13 million? Nope not the DWP.  Nope, not Tom LaBonge. You're incorrect if you said Kim Kardashian. Give up? Your Los Angeles MTA spent that amount to install turnstiles at it's subway and light rail stations - except it currently can not issue the fare media the gates require and can not be locked.




Read more »

Los Angeles Politics Hotsheet for Thursday

Your Los Angeles DWP!

The Los Angeles City Council passed a partial boycott of City business with organizations based in Arizona to protest a controversial immigration law in the Grand Canyon State. While the City is not going to give up lucrative contracts with Arizona based airlines and other businesses, some are concerned about the effect this may have on innocent bystanders in this debate.  One example could be Arizona based Swift Transportation who has an $8 million contract as part of the City's "Clean Trucks" program.

Excellent piece by Joseph Mailander in today's LA Weekly chronicling the utter dysfunction that is today's Department of Water and Power.  The story starts off with a bizarre tale of how the utility left an unattended and unexplained work truck on a City street for a day; bizarre indeed that the truck's front grill was adorned with a Teenage Mutant Ninja turtle doll.

Speaking of bizarre some local legislators want to change the name of the 405 from the San Diego Freeway to the Kevin Murray Freeway.  Murray of course is the former State Senator who was found by a police officer with a prostitute in his state provided Corvette parked outside the John Anson Ford Theatre.

Why does Wendy Greuel hate Disney? The City Controller is questioning a program where the City provides bus transportation for senior citizen centers and school children to take field trips to places like the Getty, Holllywood Bowl and Disneyland.

Where in the world is Antonio Villaraigosa? In Washington, D.C. begging Congress for money for the Subway to the Sea.

Mayor Sam's Hotsheet for Friday

The candidates for Mayor were asked if they support the vision for a "subway to the sea."  Candidate Carlos Alvarez does as well as subways to everywhere else.  Because he rode the subway in London, Phil Jennerjahn is surprisingly for this boondoggle as - no surprise - is Mayor Villaraigosa.  Walter Moore and David Hernandez correctly note the fiscal irresponsibility of the project and David "Zuma Dogg" Saltsburg drives it home saying the project consumes "a lot of money, time and hope tied up for something that may or may not even happen for 30 years."

The Planning Commission has delayed plans to re-write the City's billboard laws, changes that could have a chilling effect on free speech in Los Angeles.  In the meantime while billboard hysteria reaches a fever pitch during the City's primary elections, a recent poll bears out what I suspected - that most folks don't care and aren't even aware of the fight with 47% of Angelenos saying the advertisments are attractive.  Among Hispanics, the fastest growing segment of LA residents there is a near total lack of interest in the issue, with only three percent of that demographic saying the issue had any relevancy to their lives. That being said the billboard NIMBYS are loud and wicked - and voter apathy concentrates their venom - so local politicians cross them at their own peril.

How many DWP employees does it take to pass out a lightbulb? About $3 million worth.  Each of you will get free energy-saving CFL lightbulbs and the DWP will personally deliver them to your home.  I guess some genius at the DWP didn't figure out it would be far more cost effective to include a coupon in ratepayers' bills.  Question: Will they deliver light bulbs to the homeless? Yet another reason - DWP poor decisions - Vote No on B!

Saying that he is "a fiscal reformer with the energy and know how to clean up the financial mismanagement at City Hall, cut government waste and bring more accountability to city departments," former Los Angeles City Controller Rick Tuttle endorsed Fifth District Council Candidate Ron Galperin. 

About 400 entertainment industry jobs in the Los Angeles area will be lost in 2009 according to a research report released by the he Los Angeles Economic Development Corp.  The LAEDC's Jack Kyser - Walter Moore's second favorite economist - said the industry "faces challenges on many fronts."

Villaraigosa Cuts Heads from MTA Board. Too little, too late.

Too little change, too late, Mr. Villaraigosa.

Putting in the MTA failsafes, or changing MTA Board Directors, should have been done before the train crash. You are now grandstanding in the face of dozens of deaths, hundreds of injuries and tens of millions, or hundreds of millions, in liability.

If you spent less time posing for photos, and coming up with clever names of things that sound good, but people don't want, such as "Subway to the Sea" and "the subway mayor," and spent that time, energy and money on safety, we'd have those people alive today.

Haiku: Where are the damn synchronized traffic lights???

http://www.noblehaiku.blogspot.com/

Mayor squanders cash.

Just sync lights and buy buses!

Stop torturing us!!!