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Chief Spoll Check Officer

Our award winning bloggin' mangler of the English language, Scott Johnson, has once again shone a big spotlight on something not smelling too good in Los Angeles. No, not the Mayor's sock drawer but the case of a one Academia Semillas de Pollo (uh, que lastima, Pueblo) here in Los Angeles.

You've been following for years the story of this controversial charter school, everything from the Aztec language lessons to the Costco pizza snacks to the attempted, literal attempt to throw newsman Sandy Wells under the bus.

Scott has been doing excellent investigative reporting on the school for some time now, with documents happily provided by alleged employees, former parents, public officials and what he could dig up himself. Apparently, as the school escaped near death at the hands of LA schools super, John Deasy (by school director Marcos Aguilar dressing up like an Aztec warrior and securing the vote of LAUSD Board Chair Monica Garcia who probably, like me, has enjoyed one too many Costco pizzas), they've become much more sensitive to anyone shining light on their operations.

Snackin' Semillas Style?

Thus, a very confusing "cease and desist" letter came to Johnson, who laughed in it's general direction and was emboldened by even further document dumps coming out of El Sereno.

And, as we have seen before, this action does not serve to shove the whole matter under the wrong, but it only wakes up local media, who - despite their political leanings - don't take kindly to government types trying to shut up fellow members of the working press.

Two good examples of that today, a thoughtful analysis of the story so far by Joseph Mailander at CityWatch and a delicious reportage dripping with her trademark snark, by Simone Electra Wilson at the LA Weekly. 

We hear more is coming.

I believe it as former Watergate burglar and now right wing gold salesman G. Gordon Liddy who is famous for allegedly having said "Once you squeeze the toothpaste out of the tube, it's hard to get it back in."

Stay tuned.

What About Being For Something?

In his latest piece at CityWatch publisher Ken Draper catalogs a number of grass roots "victories" across the City; that a sleeping giant has been woken from a slumber to take charge of it's destiny here in Los Angeles.

Yet almost all of the victories Draper celebrates are about being against something; not really anything about creating a larger vision for LA's future; more so about hanging on to a past that doesn't exist anymore.

For sure, some of the things Draper discusses such as recent victories by residents of Sunland-Tujunga over Home Depot and some early victories over DWP shadiness are good things.

Yet is LA just about maintaining the status quo or will it be about reinventing itself into a first class city?

Our efforts should be about renovating our neighborhoods, providing economic opportunity and empowering shut out residents like immigrants (from other countries as well as other US states) and young adults who will ultimately be in the charge of the place a lot longer than Mayor V or any of the various community leaders around town.

Though there's a lot more noise on the neighborhood circuit these days and more folks are talking to each other than before, there is still a serious disconnect. Both the politicians and the people are tuned out, many of us live in communities where we have absentee Council members and few people vote; those who do re-elect the same shady politicians and continue to pass bond measures and new taxes without much thought to what they're doing.

We have a lot more to do to engage LA's silent majority and perhaps, doing something other than being against Wal-Mart and homes with great rooms might be one way to pique their interest.