Los Angeles Politics Hotsheet for Tuesday

Zasloff on Stewart: "NIMBYism,  libertarianism and anger management problems." 

Six staffers from Councilman Richard Alarcon's office will be called before a Grand Jury panel on Wednesday.  The District Attorney is currently investigating whether or not Alarcon falsified his voter registration by claiming residence at a home he does not live in while actually living in another home in Paul Krekorian's district.  If true, Alarcon could be guilty of a felony.

Now that it's pretty clear that the City's ill-thought out water conservation policy was the cause of multiple significant water main breaks throughout the City in the last year, the Council is voting on new procedures.  What's needed next is an independent investigation of the DWP and Mayor's office to determine if any DWP engineers warned that the policy could lead to the breaks and if those warnings were ignored. If the engineers didn't issue such advice, then they need to be fired at the very least.  William Mulholland must be turning in his grave.

Salt Lake City is the latest to say thanks, but no thanks to a boycott of Arizona over it's controversial but popular immigration reform law. Council members there are concerned about the "unintended consequences" of such a boycott. In the meantime Councilman Dennis Zine tells KTLA that the ramifications of LA's boycott were not researched prior to the vote and that the boycott is "a symbolic effort by two colleagues that wanted to generate controversy."

An environmental law blogger is accusing Mayor Villaraigosa of "betraying environmentalism again" following the departure of Planning Manager Gail "GPS" Goldberg.  Jonathan Zasloff claims that Goldeberg is a visionary who fell victim to a rogue's gallery of opponents including Jane Usher, County Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky and LA Weekly Editor Jill Stewart whom Zasloff says has a unique combination of "NIMBYism,  libertarianism and anger management problems." Wonder what Mulholland Terrace's take is on this one?

And finally back when we had our Hollywood Police Chief he saw no need for the City to rein in crazy paparazzi because, among other things, celebrity Lindsay Lohan had "gone gay."  That was back when Lohan was dating disc jockey Samantha Ronson with whom she had a very public and dramatic breakup.  While there was some sign that Lindsay had gone back to guys it looks LA may be safe again as rumors are abuzz LiLo has once again hit the sapphic trail and has hooked up with a female Israeli soldier.

Los Angeles Politics Hotsheet for Monday

 Over at Village to Village Paul Hatfield recounts the tale of how Planning Department head Gail "Can I get one of the new Google phones with the free GPS?" Goldberg is playing games with the stakeholders.  The State Legislature has passed legislation around so-called "Granny Flats" but unlike cities such as Pasadena and others Los Angeles has failed to introduce an implementation ordinance to keep the matter in check.  Goldberg, who is alleged to like a good brew, has a good excuse: too many staffers have retired to even write a bill.  Rich.

Some employees of the Los Angeles Department of World Airports may be in big trouble. A Los Angeles Times investigation alleges that several staffers may have accepted lavish free trips abroad paid for by LAX Terminal Equity Corp., a company that represents various foreign carriers at LAX.  According to an anonymous source the trips were reported by a staffer disgruntled that they were not selected to go on the trips.

Paul Krekorian was elected to the 2nd District Council Seat in a huge landslide nearly three weeks ago but he's going to have to wait until after the Rose Bowl game is played to be sworn in.  The Los Angeles City Council couldn't get around to certifying Krekorian's election before they left town for their annual Christmas break.  Krekorian, trying to get a jump on things and open up for business, found that he couldn't even get his name on the office door until the Clowncil gets back.  Welcome to the dysfunctional world of City Hall, Paul!

Is this a sign of things to come from the administration of City Attorney Carmen Trutanich? Blogger Mulholland Terrace at one of LA's hottest new blogs, Griffith Park Wayist, was threatened by Trutanich pitbull Jane Usher because Mulholland refered to an LA Times commenter who speculated that the City Attorney's recent serious medical troubles were the result of binge drinking.  If Usher and Trutanich are seeking to threaten bloggers they don't like they better guess again.  That will not go down without a fight.  They know better; particularly in light of the fact that the John Shallman run Trutanich campaign was none too happy to use local blogs in their efforts to attack Jack Weiss when he ran against Trutanich.

Some light may be shed on child molestation allegations made against deceased pop star Michael Jackson when over 300 previously classified files on Jackson's cases from 1993 to 2004 will be released Monday.  It is not known if the files contain any evidence previously unknown however some of the material will relate to the case of Jordy Chandler, who Jackson was accused of sleeping with on at least 60 occasions and whom refused to testify in the case against Jackson following a $25 million settlement with the Chandler family.  Then District Attorney Gil Garcetti, not having the participation of the alleged victim, chose not to prosecute but was willing to re-consider had further evidence come forward. 

Some stories you may have missed over the weekend while you were guzzling egg nog or shopping for gifts.  LA's new bike czar may be in trouble for half-assed work but more so for making what some folks perceive to be racially tinged comments.  Council President Eric Garcetti is looking for The Grinch.  And Mayor Sam's own Red Spot is looking to name the Ass Clown of the Year for 2009.

And finally for your consideration please vote for Mayor Sam as the best political blog at the LA Weekly's 2009 Web Awards.  There are other categories you may wish to vote in such as best Twitterer (I voted for LAist's Zach Behrens) or LA's most shameless self promoter (so many choices there!).

"Weekly of Record" takes aim at City Hall

If one could read the thoughts behind the eye lids of one Antonio Ramon Villar, one may find a few choice words directed towards LA Weekly News Editor Jill Stewart, broken into verbal fragments that begin with AHHH.

Once again Stewart and her current group of scribes dare to go where the sadly- missed Herald Examiner would once venture and the "OLD GRAY HAG ON SPRING STREET" only viewed from across the intersection with cocktails.

Whether it is the DWP, Chief Bill Bratton, the density fantasies of Councilman Ed Reyes, Planning Director Gail "Suds" Goldberg or "Friends of Numero Uno Markets Founder George Torres", they all are fair game for the scribes at the "Weekly of Record".

Scribe Daniel Heimpel gets double byline honors with his stories on the DWP's lawsuit and smack down by a judge regarding transfer of money to the City of Los Angeles's General Fund, and another judge hitting the city with an adverse ruling regarding its "Density Bonus Program".

Scribe Patrick Range McDonald deconstructs LAPD Chief Bill Bratton's premise that the City of Angels crime stats are on par with the mid-1950ies.

Scribe Steven Leigh Morris guides us through former City of Los Angeles Planning Commissioner Jane Usher's missive on the follies on one Gail "Suds" Goldberg.

Lastly, Jeffery Anderson, who has made many "ports of call in the world of free press", gives us his retrospective on the guilty verdict of Numero Uno Market Founder George Torres and his possible ties to the cities political community.http://www.laweekly.com/2009-04-30/columns/george-torres-numero-uno-no-more-but-even-after-his-racketeering-conviction-questions-remain-about-which-l-a-political-and-business-figures-were-influenced-by-his-money/

This passage should provoke some thought.....

Yet the jury heard enough to reach a speedy decision: Torres was convicted on almost every count, including his attempt to bribe former L.A. City planning commissioners Steven Carmona and George Luk to secure a zoning permit.

Still, the question remains, how many other public officials were influenced by Torres’ money? How many other L.A.P.D. officers got close enough to Torres to arouse suspicion? The indictment states that an L.A. City Councilman appeared to be waiting in the wings to receive bag money from Torres, via Carmona and Luk.

Who could that have been? Is that person still in office?

Hint, was this possibly current city office holder councilman in 2004??

Tuesday Hotsheet for Hot Streets

“I don't trust any police department to investigate itself”

Heat on the streets! The media sure know how to play Representative Maxine Waters against Southern California. Listening ad nauseam to her batty sound bites yesterday on KFI, you’d think nothing else was worth reporting in this town. By now, you know the story: Inglewood officer-involved shootings have killed three people in three months; Waters wants a federal investigation; yadda yadda yadda. Is anyone demanding a federal investigation into the San Francisco program that released a dozen felons to the streets of San Bernardino County? Or, into how AK-type assault rifles are finding their way into our communities? Or, perhaps, into the apparent lack of oversight that broke L.A. Bridges?

Speaking of which, Jeff Carr, the city’s gang czar has resurfaced. He and Mayor Villaraigosa recommend awarding half-million-dollar contracts to six anti-gang programs, effectively replacing L.A. Bridges:

“This is arguably the most pressing social problem in the city of Los Angeles. What we’ve been doing for the last 20, 25 years hasn’t been working. So we’re trying to do something different.”

Surely, we can question the mayor’s motives in hiring out-of-towners to handle such menial tasks as reversing multi-generational gang culture, fixing transportation, and city planning, but I will credit Villaraigosa for starting fresh (amazingly, there remain councilmembers who support sinking more money into L.A. Bridges). That said, L.A. Bridges should not be swept under the rug. An audit and investigation are long overdue.

The cool dudes over at LAist have documented a successful journey down the L.A. River by kayak. The purpose was to prove that the river is navigable, and thus, a river that can be “revitalized.” Blogger Zach Behrens declares, “we need this river for the people!” but with special interest man Ed Reyes’ involvement, isn’t this akin to Tom LaBonge’s Griffith Park for the people?

Finally, Los Angeles Downtown News threw a party last week to celebrate the winners of its annual Best Of. Those in attendance included many of our favorites; LaBonge, Greuel, and Reyes. According to reports, a highlight came when Councilmember Jan Perry… well, just click for yourself.

Wednesday Hotsheet at 3 a.m.

JM, Little Joy, 3.24.08

Joseph Mailander a guy in la • elsewhere • email

Take a look at this, and use the magnifying glass: an LA transit map for the year 2030. Among the stops: Wilshire/La Cienega, Palms, La Cienega/Jefferson, Maravilla, Crenshaw/Slauson. Story on the map here.

But we might need it by 2010: more growth, more congestion, more schlocky commercial spaces thrown up by out of town businesses, and less departmental oversight of new building are all coming to Los Angeles, giving our City's talentless doormat of a planning chief more ability to surrender to developers, under a new Mayor's office plan to be implemented in the next six months. Garcetti loves the idea, which would give LA's Mayor-beholden planning chief in its history more authority, at the expense of other City deparment checkpoints of reason.

The Mayor mumbles something, neither pro-management nor especially pro-union, about the urgency of avoiding a prospective actor's strike, thereby creating the illusion of involvement. We criticized the Mayor persistently for staying mum through the writer's strike. Without bolder public statements, his office's involvement is useless.

As Sam says last night, eyes are now on Robin Kramer, as one ex-Riordan cohort, Karen Sisson, splits the Mayor's office. We think Kramer is also going. The moves fit the split between the Mayor's office and the Gang of Four we first alluded to eleven days ago. The Daily News quotes the departing Sisson as leaving for "a challenging job," one she had been recruited for.

The former fishwrap of record doesn't even have its own scribe rework the AP item about the LAPD's suicide rate. The item trivializes the numbers of officers fallen in the line of duty---scarcely a way to honor them in perpetuity.

Times ed Russ Stanton canceled his Thursday night appearance at the LA Press Club. Which is a shame, because Stanton's decisions since taking the helm have been uniquely awful, scrubbing the paper in a way that trivializes news itself, and some less-than-fawning types have some questions for him.

Congrats to our friend Abby Diamond, a force of nature in a part of the town where nature matters, Sunland-Tujunga, on becoming Woman of the Year in the community.

A block down from The Shortstop, a cop dive turned westsider-looking-for-Silver-Lake scenester bar, is the Little Joy, above, which has been Yelped as well as any bar gets Yelped.

Friday Hotsheet at 3 a.m.

JM, Thank Heaven, 3.20.08


Joseph Mailander a guy in la • elsewhere • email

Today is Good Friday. The Cathedral offers a service in English at noon and one in Spanish at three. There will be a bilingual service at 7:30 p.m.

To follow up on Steve and Zev's drive in which Gail Goldberg comes off as an archvillian, the long history of planning in the City put forth by Bill Christopher in CityWatch is worth noting.

But parse it well. His stats are all calibrated to suggest that LA isn't growing fast enough. He also botched the appraisal of Gail Goldberg's statement that land values are based not only what the zone is, but on what you can change the zone to; the whole point of the problem of Gail Goldberg is that she's been willing to eat her own words on this. He calls Zev one of the few politicians who saw the ramifications of SB1818---actually, all of them saw the ramifications, Zev is simply the only one who also has seen the potential for voter disaffection.

Save the City money by...the Daily News puts forth a suggestion box.

Hope it's a short day for you. If you have a moment, contemplate the City, and your role in it.

Jack Hoff's "What Were They Thinking?"

Mayor Sam's Hotsheet for Tuesday

Our sources are telling us there was one barn burner of a session at Monday night's meeting of the Sunland-Tujunga Neighborhood Council's Land Use Committee meeting. Tipsters say a representative of Councilwoman Wendy Greuel's office, in trying to explain the backroom deal between City Attorney Rocky Delgadillo and Home Depot to place a controversial branch of the store in the mountain community, made essentially "circular comments" that provided no answers. Frustration and emotion ran so high that one committee member broke down in tears and expressed that she has "lost faith in the whole process." I suspect its going to get a whole lot uglier before the matter is resolved.

Following our big time expose that City Planning Director Gail Goldberg is allegedly a big time beer fan, the department is leaking like a sieve and lots of information is coming our way. It will take some time to parse it all but here's the latest tidbit: Planning Department employees who happen to be minorities say they're getting passed over for promotions and that an outside investigation and lawsuits may be in the works. Our sources tell us that Goldberg and her second in command, Michael LoGrande allegedly have frequent meetings at a local sports bar to drink beer and make changes to department staffing.

Last year the City Clowncil agreed to big time pay increases for city workers - more than the private sector would ever get - and now that the City is in a big budget crisis the Clowncil wants to reopen negotiations and take some of those raises back. But it seems as if the unions are not taking the Clowncil's calls.

A well known Valley NIMBY is griping in a local publication about SB 1818. You know that's the state law that basically allows developers to overrun local zoning laws if they provide some level of "affordable housing." Of course the NIMBY is up in arms but what she doesn't realize is that it's the NIMBY/CAVE/BANANA mentality that drives this very nonsense (as well as the need for developers to be shaken down by local politicians). If the market drove development, scams like SB 1818 wouldn't happen, there would be stronger reasons for developers to develop smart and it would create genuine "affordable housing." However in the current environment developers and land owners can not make the best and highest use of their land.

In the same article the same NIMBY is also aghast that the City has come to the conclusion that preferential parking districts "are turning neighborhoods with public streets into what are essentially gated communities accessible only to the residents and their guests." I've always felt that these districts - which limit parking only to those people who live next to the streets that they are created on - are on a shaky constitutional ground. When you consider that the streets are maintained with gasoline and property taxes paid by more than just the local residents, the preferential parking districts are unfair.

Tuesday Backup Hotsheet at 3 a.m.

Mmmmmmm....beer.

Joseph Mailander a guy in la • elsewhere • email

Wait a New York minute: unctuous sanctimonious Energizer Bunny Eliot Spitzer, busted---it's a dream come true. But even on top of the alleged rentals: how can you drag your wife to your act of contrition?

Everyone's been giving Gail Longneck Goldberg such a hard time, and now a Times copy ed says, "Condos are lifeblood of Wilshire Boulevard's Rebirth." But read the article and you get a sense that the lifeblood is not of the City, but from out of town, even out of country. The poor people who actually live in mid-Wilshire don't get to move into these; nor do they get better jobs than the counter of Jamba Juice out of their being built in the neighborhood.

Wait, there's yet another planning-as-fiasco story, even further down the page...it's ZeeMan, on the email that went out from the prez of the Planning Commission to prospects who might be able to sue to stop the too-tall condo madness. That's Antonio's appointment, acting against Antonio's wishes and Council's recent vote.

How far down do you have to scroll to get news, anyway? All the way to the DN, often. Sunday was another day, another gang murder, this one in Northridge. A homicide in Hollywood, too. But the bottlecap blogs at the former fishwrap of record continue to put a happy face on almost everything. They're virtually content-free in fact, sugar-coating everything. Do you think Stanton is noticing? Do you think readers are noticing that their real news is buried so far deep under the fluffy bunny-slippers up top? Does anything real in the City matter at this paper at all? Tick tick tick---is it time for a new editor yet?

Goldberg: Cold Beer and Bad Planning

The criticism of Planning Department Director Gail Goldberg continues to grow. We first learned from Joe Mailander that Gail has trouble finding her way to meetings. Then we learned from the LA Weekly that she can't even manage to plan a cup of coffee. Yesterday, we learned that Gail is rumored to be a fan of fermented grain beverages. Here are some more completely unproven allegations from an anonymous tipster.

"Jack Chiang (planner who really stepped on his who-ha by accidentally leaving "the deal is done" message for developer on a local NIMBY's answering machine) is persona non grata. Rumor was he was going to be moved to the public counter which in the City Planning World is the worst thing that can happen to you. The public hates people at the public counter...."

"Gail is really really into getting awards. Did you know a housekeeping ordinance got an award? What does that say about Gail's vision?"

"Gail is all show and no substance. She has violated so many MOUs blatantly that she about to be sued by the EAA (Engineers and Architects Association). What an idiot she is. She is ruthless. And she hiring all these young planners who are brainless and who can be molded into wannabe little Goldbergs. The place is miserable since she showed up."

Mayor Sam's Hotsheet for Sunday

The Fishwrap of Record opines that the battle between City Councilman Tony Cardenas and City Controller Laura Chick over anti-gang programs is typical of the dysfunction that continues to plague City Hall; leading activist/attorney Connie Rice to declare the City is "...stuck on stupid" in the fight against gangs. Still, the Times' prescription - to turn it all over to Mayor Villaraigosa - is equally stupid.

One of our tipsters tells us that LA City Planning Department Director Gail Goldberg and her chief zoning investigator Michael Logrande allegedely hook up regularly at a downtown watering hole to "talk shop and drink beer." According to the anonymous source, "Gail likes her beer!"

Greg Nelson proposes that the City could do well to lease out LAX. A number of cities worldwide have either leased out or privatized their airport. Chicago is about to do the same with Midway Airport. Nelson estimates that leasing the airport could generate $100 million a year in new revenue. He urges Neighborhood Councils to study the idea and urge the City Council to consider it.

I thought this was a piece from five or ten years ago but a Daily News editorial for Sunday accuses the Mayor and City Council of having "spent the city to the brink of insolvency even as they have jacked up taxes, fees and rates at every turn." They then follow up with a litany of everything we'd all agree is wrong with the City. Question now is, what are we going to do about it?

Post-mortem on the end of the Fabian Nunez era in the California Assembly. Nunez was successful in turning his Assembly Speaker post over to his hand picked successor, Karen Bass, but his immediate future appears uncertain. Perhaps Mirthala will be waiting by the phone.

LA's Homeless Blog takes issue with a silly notion by Christopher Hawthorne in the Fishwrap of Record that Mayor Villaraigosa heads up a "world class city" such as London, New York or Shanghai. The Homeless Blog rightly makes the case that a city like Los Angeles - with a significant and unaddressed homeless problem - is more of a third world city.

Did you know a number of tunnels run under downtown, connecting various government office buildings?

Regional growth, regional violence

Is the region outgrowing its capacity to police itself effectively? Are the density hawks driving the City and the region alike to an increase in stories like the following?

Our own most disenfranchised streets are not the only places in our regional 150-mile-zone where violence is escalating. From GoGirlfriend.com:

American Tourist Kidnappings and Torture on the Rise in Mexico

A San Diego man told CNN his captors sliced his tongue and beat him with the butt of a rifle for 2 weeks while his daughter tried to round up the ransom money. He had been visiting in Tijuana when men dressed like police officers and carrying automatic rifles dragged him off.

"The brutality that is inflicted on some of these people is unconscionable," FBI agent Keith Slotter told CNN.

That's not a yahoo commenter at MayorSam, that's a Fed [ed.--same thing?] talking. But the problem of fake Federales and real terror didn't come up when the Mayor of Mexico City visited Council last December, or during the President of Mexico's visit last month, though Tom LaBonge did present el Alcalde with some highly conciliatory pumpkin bread.

CNN also reported today what looks to be an across-the-border kidnapping in the eastern suburbs of San Diego--some of the same developments with such a high propensity for catching catastrophic fire---and incidentally developed during Gail GPS Goldberg's tenure as San Diego's regional-growth-surrender-monkey planning chief.

"Growth is inevitable. I don't know anyone who doesn't want to grow," Goldberg is fond of saying.

Tuesday Hotsheet at 3 a.m.

JM, Poppies, Scott & Alvarado Meridian, 2.26.08


Joseph Mailander a guy in la • elsewhere • email

From this perch: Hillary in three of four. The real Roger Simon nails her strategy: the victim who victimizes.

When it comes to the City, jurors hand make-up money out like cotton candy at the fair: now those poor white firefighters who were punished for hazing that poor black firefighter also get absurd million-dollar judgments. Now almost all of them---victim and perps alike---are a million plus richer for their involvement in a prank that wouldn't even make the paper on a college campus. Can't wait until the Latino guy sues for not being victimized enough to be a part of any lawsuit.

Doing its level best to protect itself from answering to curious taxpayers, City Attorney Rocky Delgadillo's office not only blew the defense of the City's deep pockets but then went the extra mile and declined all comment on the case.

You're so busted: Self-published books look a bit better this morning as the second work of fiction masquerading as fact in a month is recalled by a mainstream publisher. This one involved a Valley girl with a top-drawer family pedigree who faked living la vida loco with gangbangers in South LA for the sake of scoring a contract with Penguin.

If you missed the earlier incident, about a woman who claimed she was raised by wolves during the Holocaust, here's a good account.

CityWatch has a great piece regarding rumblings on repealing SB 1818, the State bill which turns affordable housing into a slush fund for developers. Shills use SB 1818 to bilk cities of billions (yes, billions) even while doing so little to create truly affordable housing. The Mayor of Los Angeles and his hand-picked, career-beholden Planning Chief, Gail Goldberg, (a woman with no knowledge of Los Angeles whatsoever prior to her appointment) have been the top performing prime offenders in the State. Most Councilpeople have also been complicit in handing over the City from the People to the Few, while rendering the streets unparkable and the lawns unplayable, all for the sake of letting developers rake cash off of a few crappy units per mega-development that do nothing to make housing afforable for anyone but the tiniest handful of lottery winners.

Money quote from the piece: "In fact, right now – throughout our city - sleeper cells of developers and architects are designing massive, neighborhood busting complexes of the type you and your neighborhood council – mistakenly – thought your community plan protected you against."

And the problem performance of yet another out-of-town Antonio appointment, Ed Boks, is the subtext of this piece by Rick Orlov, who informs his readers that the Animal Reg has let animals stand in the cold rain without adequate protection, and at last spent $118,000 (of $50,000,000 the voters pledged to them) to give the critters an adequate rainfly at last.

Weekly: Gail Goldberg "can't plan a cup of coffee"

Sao Paulo, Brazil

Joseph Mailander a guy in la • elsewhere • email

I've been on Gail GPS Goldberg's case for a long time, but today Steven Leigh Morris at the Weekly caught the fever. All it took was one meeting with the City's most dependable developer doormat.

Sure, a month ago I found it odd that our Planning chief couldn't get to Los Feliz from downtown without a map. But it gets even worse for Steve:

"Looks like we made a mistake," she concedes. "Sorry ... She's got a 9 a.m. appointment, so you'd only have half an hour."

"That," I say, "would be a good start," pondering how the Planning Department could have so much trouble planning a cup of coffee.

If you missed it in Red Spot's earlier item, the article starts here. San Diegan Gail Goldberg cares about as much for the City of Los Angeles as an organ harvester cares for an anesthetized patient. Give her a couple more years, and she'll turn your City into Sao Paulo (above).

Read our earlier work on Goldberg here.

LA Out of Town

A reader observes:

What the heck is your beef with development and planning lately. Planning is a science, but like Medicine, its not exact. Growth happens, just like continental drift. Suburban growth outwards is no better than urban infill. both increase traffic, both strain civic and physical resources. But the planning department has to offer proactive solutions that to the best of their knowledge will create a healthy balance.

Here are a few of my problems:

Gail Goldberg's Planning Department does not address growth and density, it creates them. Look at the condos being built in Koreatown; they're for people who don't currently live here. Look at the eighty-unit "smart growth" job on the corner of your nearest bus-stop; that's the one for people who are already here, and the people who move in will leave behind an empty apartment to be filled by someone from out of town who formerly would have simply moved to Hollywood, a community that has been absorbing transitional residents of every point of origin for years. Making every community the out-of-town gateway, rather than a handful of communities, is working to congest LA everywhere, as ever-higher percentages of renters pour in from elsewhere into many neighborhoods rather than a few.

Look at all the projects downtown that were obliged to flip from owner-occupied to leased; they're now contributing to the worst planning problem LA has, which is too few home-owners. Our homeowner-renter ratio is completely out-of-whack compared to other cities, and the top priority should be in addressing that.

Look at the Planning Department's Preservation office's latest idea: protected status for the City's bridges. I don't know about you, but I can't remember the last time a bridge was demolished by the City. Public Works and Street Lighting were already doing a great job with the bridges, and were proud of the job they did; the measure is merely a costly slap to rank and file in these departments who were already doing a great job. The status may land a few more dollars from elsewhere, but that's just laziness and fluff: maintaining bridges adequately is already very popular with voters in quakey California, who are only anxious to give State and Municipality alike all the money for bridges they need.

A news conference for protection for bridges? You know, they really don't issue too many demo permits for bridges that thousands of people drive across every day. It took an office of six to come up with that proposal, even though the City only has two planners working on Master Plans. For the past decade, Ken Bernstein, first at the Conservancy and now in Planning, has misallocated resources on quixotic, failed projects like the Ambassador and HPOZs, and that's the kind of person Gail Goldberg rewards with a big new department, even though the City already has a Cultural Heritage Commission.

Look at all the projects at the CRA now stalled because the developers know to hold out for more money.

And look at this article this morning in the former fishwrap of record on the way growth is straining the City everywhere. The Master Plans are supposed to integrate the will of the community; but the will of the community is being thwarted everywhere. (Amazingly, it's Yaroslavski, sounding more like a mayoral candidate every day, who touts himself as a slow-growth guy from the eighties, and the Times scribe bought it; I guess none of the Times scribes or eds were around when the Westside Pavilion was developed).

San Diegan Gail Goldberg is here not because she's strong, but because, like Gloria Jeffs was, she's weak, a pushover for developers and for Council alike. She's beholden to the developer-dependent Mayor, and Antonio's narrow and further narrowing political ambitions have sold out this City to out-of-town interests at the expense of the people who have lived here for decades. Out-of-town Department heads like Ed Boks, Goldberg, and Jeffs were calculatedly weak appointments who guaranteed giving the Mayor's office and Council, rather than the experts, the strongest hand in Planning, Animal Reg, and Traffic.

Tuesday Hotsheet at 3 a.m.

JM, City Club Car, Riverside Park, 2.11.08

Joseph Mailander a guy in la • elsewhere • email

Shadow secretary of downtown commerce Brady Westwater flaks for Eli Broad in Citywatch, taking offense to crit of his eponymous LACMA expansion, which includes galleries and galleries of works drawn from the white maley collection of...Eli Broad. I am more in line with Christopher Hawthorne; and admittedly, Broad's absurdly ugly performing arts school downtown has all but obliterated most views from the north of the Cathedral, downtown's most stately building. But what do you expect from a guy who made his first fortune building homes whose most prominent street elevation feature is a double-wide garage door?

One thing I forgot to mention regarding the AD 40 debate on Sunday: when Bob Blumenfield mentioned the fact that he had the endorsement of Fabian Nunez, snickers and out-and-out chortles rose from the audience. He won't likely do that again.

Because you get out a bit more than most other folks, you may think of Ed Boks as under fire, but the general public doesn't. In fact, it's the County's pounds that are the ones that the Times reports are under scrutiny. But don't blame the fishwrap entirely. The difference appears to be: the County takes action in the wake of complaints; the City is less inclined to critique its own. Never mind Boks; you didn't know that Gloria Jeff was doing a rotten job until she was gone; and you're not hearing anything untoward yet about Gail "GPS" Goldberg either.

LAUSD is trying to account for $400 million worth of computers and software, the Daily News informs in a Sue Doyle byline story. You'd think with 129,000 personal computers purchased, they could have done a better job monitoring their payroll system.

Damn out of towners

JM, No space problems here, Playa del Rey shoal, 2.05.08

Joseph Mailander a guy in la • elsewhere • email

I'll admit it, sometimes folks get on me about Zuma---even as they get on MayorSam about me. But I can't imagine Zuma (or me, for that matter) writing what Patt Morrison came up with this morning at the former fishwrap of record.

Space is purportedly tight on the Times op-ed page--too tight to cover local news adequately, they say---but the paper this morning had adequate space to lend to Patt Morrison pitching the "fun" of Rudy Giuliani as prospective Mayor---of LA.

I won't speak for myself, but I do know that Zuma shows way more restraint and sound editorial judgment than that.

Whatever her column meant to accomplish is unclear, but whatever it is, it looks like a big waste of space. Patt, in fact, is going way off in the wrong direction, if recent City history serves to inform.

So forget Rudy, Patt. I'll give you three out-of-towners, already here with the Mayor's blessing, who you should be writing about:

Ed Boks. Enough said. The guy recently took down a poll from his personal blog that wasn't going his way. He has pissed off nearly every corner of the City's various animal rights communities.

Gail "GPS" Goldberg. "Growth is inevitable" by Goldberg's book, even though both New York City and her hometown of San Diego have been managing its population with considerable stability and healthy economies for over a decade. She pleads "My hands are tied" when any issue gets tough; she caves to every re-zoning request. Literally thousands of million-dollar condos have been built under her watch, and not one of them for anyone who actually lives here (it's simple math, Gail: if you live here, you can't buy a million-plus condo without already owning something, and who would trade a million-plus property they already own here in LA for a million-plus condo?). And certainly: anyone who needs a map to get from Downtown to Los Feliz should not be the City's top planner. D'Oh!

Gloria Jeff. She's come and gone, mercifully, but---why on earth would you bring in a traffic czar from outside of the city? The majority of residents, who have lived here five years or more, all ramble around LA with long-ago established knowledges of how the City is supposed to flow; we project our expectations onto our commutes, our meet-ups, our late-night boogie routes. The idea that an out-of-towner could tap into this collective traffic consciousness and start solving things was completely preposterous.

Here's a worthwhile op-ed, Nick: when a Mayor brings someone in from out of town, they're easier to lead around by the nose, and that's what the Mayor's people knew in 2005 when they brought in these people. But our City has too much legacy for an out-of-towner to penetrate in a short time; these out-of-towner internships are typically are busts that don't work in the City's interests, only in the Mayor's.

Nobody talks much about these people,who are failing LA's citizens daily, and nobody assigns their failures to the Mayor. But Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa appointed them all, and the Mayor should answer for them all.

Sunday Morning Mimosa

JM, Mourners/Labyrinth, Forest Lawn Glendale, 9.13.07


Joseph Mailander a guy in la • elsewhere • email

Aw...damn it. Suzanne Pleshette, 1937-2008. Yet again: lung cancer.

Here's a blog devoted to aggregating stories relevant to transportation in LA: LosAngelesTransportation.blogspot.com.

Oh, really? The Downtown News quotes Related Cos.' Bill Witte on why there's been no groundbreaking on Grand Avenue as yet: "The groundbreaking is more of a symbolic event," Witte told Los Angeles Downtown News last week. "It has little to do with where we are in the project schedule. We are continuing ahead, and we have the wherewithal to do it."

We have two words explaining the groundbreaking delay: Frank Gehry. Gehry won the commission in 1989; the Disney Hall groundbreaking came only in 1999.

But we already told you so. Or did you already forget how the Disney Hall was delivered a decade late and a hundred million over budget?

BTW, add the Downtown News' Anna Scott to the City's short roster of very dependable City reporters worth following.

Gail "GPS" Goldberg's bizarre Historic Employment Preservation Zone downtown is shutting down the highly successful loft movement there, the LA Business Journal notes. "“Under this policy, it looks like it could remain a parking lot for years to come. It’s a shame, not to allow the evolution of a unique neighborhood."

Murders on the perimeter: a body is found with stab wounds under an overpass in Porter Ranch. Homicides at a party in Long Beach; problems in Compton, altogether totalling eleven shootings, reported in the Times.

Missed this last week, but it turns out Al Martinez is a member of the Writer's Guild. And family think he's looking more like Homer Simpson every day. So why not a column reflecting on why the purportedly pro-Union Mayor hasn't been jawboning the studios?

You are exactly one leap year away from inaugurating a new President. So hold on.

Lost! Special Edition: Gail "GPS" Goldberg

JM, One needed a map to get there, 1.17.08


Joseph Mailander a guy in la • elsewhere • email

Nuestro pueblo's Planning jefe, Gail "GPS" Goldberg was in Los Feliz last night, with Ken Bernstein in tow.

She warmed up the crowd by telling them mobility was a problem in LA. She said it took her forty-five minutes to get from downtown to Los Feliz last night.

She also said her mapping program said it was eight miles (btw---it's not, it's more like 4.5).

So what did she do---take Wilshire? But more intriguingly:

Why does THE PLANNING DIRECTOR of the CITY OF LOS ANGELES need DIRECTIONS to get from Downtown to the corner of Hillhurst and Franklin?

~~~

A concerned citizen asked GPS Goldberg what the City is doing about density.

It's doing nothing but increasing it and rearranging the increases around transit hubs. Which we already knew.

Then the citizen asked her why her answer presumed that growth was inevitable, even though LA was already more dense than New York City.

We've heard the same answer since she arrived from San Diego: that there are three contributors to growth---immigration, copulation, and domestic arrivals---and that you can't really control any of them at the Planning level.

She added somewhat snippily that people come here for jobs, and she didn't know of a single person who was for cutting back jobs or the economy.

A delicious non sequitur, that. The people coming here for jobs---sure, some slip into million-one-five condos, some into Taco Bell Tuscan lofts, but mostly---aren't they the ones who largely stand out in front of Home Depots or on street corners with fruit at their feet? Surely this is the largest segment of people who come here for jobs?

Yet the City isn't permitting a damn thing for these kinds of job seekers. Even so, the message is always the same: growth is inevitable, that's why we've got to build more units for people from Seoul, Madison, and Irvine (rather than for renters of every ethnicity who are already here, but who can't afford flipped houses and milion-one-five condos and would rather not live in Taco Bell Tuscans).

~~~

More interesting stuff: the Planning Department since GPS Goldberg arrived has dedicated two planners to handle rewriting the community master plans. And she seemed proud of the number.

You know how many people she's put in the Historic Resources Division? Six.

Repeating: Planning has six Historic Resources staffers, but only two dedicated to those among us writing new community plans. And despite the fact that the City already has a Cultural Heritage Commission, and there is an allegedly not-for-profit LA Conservancy that earlier this month got four million dollars richer at the expense of the LAUSD.

Sudden thought: couldn't the Conservancy volunteer with the extorted Ambassador largesse to do some of the survey work that Gail GPS Goldberg's Planning Department is doing? Or would that detract too much from its mandate to squander resources on shaking down orgs like the LAUSD and the Archdiocese of Los Angeles, so that it can continue its litigious efforts for another largely fruitless and stationery decade?

Thursday Hotsheet at 8 a.m.

Alas, windstorms have a mollifying effect on my chronic insomnia, and I slept through the night, so there was no Hotsheet at 3 a.m.

There are some good ones on tap today. The CRA Board meets, and various project managers will be obliged to tapdance before it. But will they get around to discussing recent debacles in East LA? De La Hoya delivered a knockout punch to the Sears Building project, and the prospects for siting the biomed research center on the eastern fringe of the City now looks bleak.

Broad gave at the office again. Read the subtext: the fishwrap's special notice of how much he's given to charter schools over the years is important messaging---that way, it doesn't look so much like the Mayor's office pet project. Also worth noting: Eli made his fortunes off of non-union companies, and charter schools are non-union schools.

LA has one of the most beatable subway systems in the world, and nearly every time you see a guard checking for tickets, somebody gets nabbed. But installing $50 million dollars worth of gates won't even recoup the fare losses for over ten years. Put this one on the back burner, please.

Obama in the Valley. He jawboned Countrywide. Predatory home loans may become a leading Democratic issue in the west, where much more of it was done than in the east and midwest. Did it ever occur to anyone that Obama may be so popular not only because he's a good talker, but because he appears to be a great listener? Today, Hillary and Edwards are both in town.

Tonight, likely another good one at my own Los Feliz Library: both Gail Goldberg and Ken Bernstein will be there, presumably talking about Historic Employment Overlay Zones and their vision for LA as a metropolis on the brink of ruin, with only "enlightened" "smart growth" developers able to save us. Program at 6:30 p.m.

You would think it would be a bad week for Ken Bernstein to appear anywhere. The last nail in the Ambassador preservation-effort coffin was hammered in on Monday. The predatory organization spent ten years and vast resources on that one, and cashed out via another public agency, the LAUSD, in the end. Many, many real monuments fell by the wayside in that time.