Jan Perry and Friends stand up for CD 9 as is

Councilwoman Jan Perry and friends stand in support of the current CD 9 District. Photo by Hayley Fox of Blog Downtown.

CD City Councilwoman Jan Perry is marshaling her supporters for a fight to preserve the current incarnation of the council district. Perry and about forty of her constituents gathered for a mid-afternoon testimonial on the bleak future awaiting CD 9, if the the proposed city redistricting maps are made permanent.

Downtown Developer Tom Gilmore noted “You cannot fix or help any district by cutting it in half,” Gilmore said. “Our ability to work under one council district, our ability to work through the entitlement process, through the development process, work through the affordable housing issues that we have, work with our partners in Skid Row, Little Tokyo, the Arts District and South L.A. make the mighty Ninth mighty, indeed.” As reported in the City Maven.

Another bit of concern for for CD 9 Downtown boosters may be found in this brief passage by Ron Kaye in a post regarding the brewing blowback on the proposed redistricting maps. In the following paragraph, Kaye notes this about CD 14 Councilman Jose Huizar. "Bill Rosendahl called the maps an "outrageous case of gerrymandering," which was always the intent but not if it cost him Westchester or inflicted Tom LaBonge on Sherman Oaks and Encino or robbed Jan Perry of the big bucks from downtown developers to provide Jose Huizar with that plum even as rumors of his legal problems with the feds are heating up.


This should concern those in Downtown, especially in light of the recent Historic Downtown BID controversy involving the "black balling" of Executive Director candidate Roberto Saldana by Councilman Huizar, for merely speaking out against him during last springs CD 14 Elections. Those facts alone should give pause to those contemplating a future Downtown LA controlled by CD 14.


Your thoughts ..............
Scott Johnson in CD 14. 

Morning Briefs on a "Divided Los Angeles Political Machine" for Thursday

The convoluted political boundaries in a divided community.

Welcome to the morning after the unveiling of the first proposed redistricting map for the City of Los Angeles and the reaction? Where do we start? Lets spin the political bottle and it points at Downtown LA.

Downtown Developer Tom Gilmore.

One of the major redistricting battlegrounds in the weeks ahead will be Downtown LA where CD 14 Councilman Jose Huizar may expand his downtown territory at a cost to CD 9's Councilwoman Jan Perry. But not if Developer Tom Gilmore has is way, from the LA Times, "In downtown, developer Tom Gilmore said he was shocked that the redistricting panel proposed shifting Councilwoman Jan Perry’s district south, causing her to lose much of the city's central core.

“It’s so counter-intuitive,” said Gilmore, who praised Perry for her role in bringing redevelopment to the area and who said "downtown unity" is key to future growth. “You finally have a downtown that after 30 years is moving ahead. I really have to question why all this incredible gerrymandering is going on to fix something that isn’t broken."

Gilmore and other downtown leaders will appear with Perry at a rally Thursday to protest the changes, which would give Eastside Councilman Jose Huizar large parts of downtown". We should note that Gilmore and Councilman Huizar have had some differences in the past but Gilmore knows Councilman Huizar's "S.O.P." which should cause pause among other downtown leaders.

CD 11 City Councilman Bill Rosendahl.

Councilman Bill Rosendahl CLAERLY let everyone know how he felt about parts of Westchester being added to CD 8 of Councilman Bernard Parks. An "outrageous case of gerrymandering." 

Sunland-Tujunga Alliance Founder and former Mayor Sam Blogger Joe Barrett.

In the northern hinterlands of the City of Los Angeles, don't expect many in Lake View Terrace and Sunland-Tujunga to welcome CD 7 Councilman Richard AlarCON with open arms. Joe Barrett said members of his Sunland-Tujunga community would "flip out" over a plan to take it out of Councilman Paul Krekorian's district.

Koreatown Sign.

But by far yesterday, the most vocal group were the hundreds of Korean-Americans who attended the Redistricting Committee meeting yesterday in Van Nuys. They all spoke on being united in one council district, especially one that does not have a " number 10 designation".

“When you neglect the Asian community, when you talk about every other ethnic group and yet you forget a population that is 15 percent of this community, it’s hurtful,” said Grace Yoo, executive director of the Korean American Coalition. But more interesting is why the Korean Community wants nothing to do with City Council President Herb Wesson's CD 10.

But then it may be the same reason why some Downtown want nothing to do with CD 14. After all, the "real cost" of doing business in the City of Los Angeles is predicated on what council person controls the services of government.

Your thoughts ..............

Scott Johnson in CD 14.                                                                                

Morning Briefs on the Los Angeles Political Machine for Monday

Downtown Developer Tom Gilmore.

The Historic Downtown Business Improvement District (BID) and other community groups in CD 14 would find it wise to take the advise of Downtown Developer Tom Gilmore, when faced with the pressure from the Office of City Councilman Jose Huizar, to cede your organizational control to the "Huizar Way". 

As the Downtown BID backtracked (due to Saldana's denouncement by Huizar staff member Jessica Whortington McLean) on its nomination of Roberto Saldana to replace the formerly-ousted Executive Director Russell Brown, Gilmore rose up and made the following comment in a meeting that was more a shouting match than a civil discourse on BID affairs as noted in the Downtown News. Developer and property owner Tom Gilmore, who is not a board member, said the council office's involvement amounts to an "inappropriate intervention." He urged the board not to let it influence their choice of a director.

"If all of the legal mumbo jumbo here to set this up for the next meeting is just duck and cover to create a new vote to undo what you did, you have lost your soul," Gilmore said. "The politics here are [expletive], I assure you.... No one will support a board that can't make a real decision. I certainly won't."........ and the reason the politics are "F...ed" in organizations like the BID, Neighborhood Councils, Park Advisory Boards, CBOs and even youth associations, is because you have an insecure, vindictive person in office who believes that adherence to the "Huizar Way" should be the paramount concern of his constituents.

Thus, if you call out your City Councilman as Saldana's did in a LA Weekly article during the contentious CD 14 Campaign, then the "Huizar Way" is to put pressure on your respective organization to silence you or remove you. Sounds so undemocratic buts that the norm in CD 14.

** Downtown News Editor and "Scribe of Wit" Jon Regardie sag ways from theater to anatomical body parts to provide proper analogies on the declared and undeclared candidates to replace Mayoral Antonio "pain in butt" Villar in 2013. 

** Advise to those college students camping out at City Hall, trying earn extra credit from your leftist indoctrinator/political science teacher, there is a "Corporate Welfare City-State called AEG LA LIVE" that has received hundreds of millions in tax credits thanks to your "fellow-traveling" (the world on our tax dollars) progressive mayor. Hmm. I hear only silence.

** Ron Kaye has the "inner thoughts" of an urban progressive Madeline Janis, who doubles as a corporate welfare case worker when executing her board member duties at CRA LA.


** Daily News Tipoff Columnist Rick Orlof has political doings via Governor Moonbeam II, CD 15 City Council Candidate Pat McOsker and City Controller Wendy "Valley Greuel".

Your thoughts...............

Scott Johnson in CD 14