Garcetti Spends $450K to Renovate Mayoral Manse

Silly Rabbits

While otherwise making a name for himself coast to coast, inserting himself into the sad tale of Los Angeles Clippers owner, Donald Sterling and his silly rabbit, the scribes at the LA Weekly were quietly gathering the details on rennovations the Mayor and his wife, Amy Wakeland, billed the city for in order for the First Family to move into the city owned, Getty House, Los Angeles' official residence for its chief executive.

The piece by veteran journo Gene Maddaus tabulates a near half a million dollars in changes and fixes to the Hancock Park mansion, a process that was essentially project managed by Wakeland.

Read the piece, but there's a few gems in there, such as:

"Amy Wakeland wanted new light bulbs at Getty House. It was late August, and the wife of new

Mayoral Manse

mayor Eric Garcetti had taken command of renovation work at the mayoral residence. On her list of improvements were LED bulbs — ones that would be friendly to the Tudor mansion's interiors while also advancing the mayor's environmental agenda.

The lighting at Getty House had just been upgraded in 2007, and it already had some LED bulbs and compact fluorescents. In the opinion of the city's building maintenance director, there was "probably not much of an opportunity to save energy by changing the lights."

But Wakeland told city workers she could get some donations, and she tasked the mayor's sustainability officer with rustling up some free bulbs. A private equity firm ended up donating some lights, but that did not cover the full cost. In the end, the city spent $14,000 on new lighting for Getty House."

The Garcetti-Wakelands

And this,

"In November, the project was on track for completion by Dec. 1. One key item remained. The family wanted several wooden signs installed on ground-floor doors, with the word "PRIVATE." But no matter how many samples city workerscame up with, they could not find a font that the mayor liked. Finally, they asked the mayor to sketch the lettering he wanted.

On Nov. 6, he wrote out the word "PRIVATE" on a piece of paper and gave his instructions: a sans-serif font, wide spacing, maybe Art Deco–influenced, on silver/metal backing.

This decision was up to him, and he made it."

More importantly, the piece points out the concerns made by others, including L.A. writer, Joseph Mailander (who was recently blocked on Twitter by the Mayor), as to what precisely Wakeland's role is in the administration viz-a-viz the role she serves

Los Angeles Politics Hotsheet for Thursday

The vote to move forward a controversial plan to build a trucking school in Lopez Canyon was more like World Cup result as the City Council's Planning and Land Use Management Committee went 1-1 (Krekorian-no, Huizar-yes).  While Council Member Richard Alarcon, Mayor Villaraigosa and city unions want to slap the northeast Valley with this environment destroying stupidity community activists have been joined by adjacent Council Member Paul Krekorian in opposing the school.  One can be certain that if anyone was proposing to build a trucking school say, in Fryman Canyon, instead of Lopez Canyon the howls of protest would be so much louder.  But environmental injustice and racism from the City marches on.  In the meantime while maintaining he is no fan of Alarcon or anything LA's Zorro Marxist cooks up, local gadfly Phil Jennerjahn's take is to blame the victim.

Nice to see the professionals are back in charge at the LAPD.  You may remember that when hooligans rioted following the LA Lakers NBA finals win last year then Chief William Bratton's move was to disengage and let the rioters riot.  This year Chief Charlie Beck has prepped an actual plan, including busting heads where necessary,  but doing everything possible ahead of time to prevent unruly crowds from going apeshit. Oh, go Lakers!

Walter Moore uncovers something very few know but might be outraged otherwise. In a time of budget crunches the City has alloted nearly $125K to cover maid service and other incidentals at Mayor Villaraigosa's home, Getty House. Can't he just call Merry Maids and pull out his own credit card? Or he is pretty good at cleaning toilets, he can do it himself.

In the meantime while the Mayor is getting housekeeping services the dunderhands at the LAUSD are getting rid of school plant managers at local campuses as a cost-cutting move.  Our friend Debbie Lopez writing at the Beckford Parents blog notes that Plant Managers such as Beckford's Henry will be laid off.  If you're an LAUSD parent you may want to take note that your local school will be more likely to have backed up toilets, no one checking furnaces, water heaters let alone fixing broken things quickly. LAUSD will assign the duties to regional managers who will now have the responsibility for several schools.  You may want to call LA's school board members; Beckford Parents has all the details.

Guess what! Two weeks ago LA's law severely limiting medical marijuana shops and crackdowns were in the works yet most of the shops continue to operate.  A significant number of the "illegal" shops are apparently staying open in an act of civil disobedience with their lawyers on hold to battle the City in court.

Mayor Sam's Hotsheet for St. Patrick's Day

Happy St. Patrick's Day to all of you - and thanks to our web developer in chief, Antonio Watch, by now we're sure you've noticed that the Sister City has been repainted for the day with a wee bit o' the green.

Lots of things happening in the City; but the Mayor found the time Sunday to fill his 800,000th pothole since taking office, this one in Leimert Park. Where will pothole number one million be? Let's start taking bets now.

Mayor Villaraigosa is turning Getty House into a hot spot for fashion shows. FutureFashion LA turned the Mayoral residence into a place where politics and fashion mingled over "fruity cocktails and ’80s music" and among the items highlighted was "a neon-yellow quilted vest filled with hemp."

How far does City Clowncilman Tony Cardenas want to go in his battle with City Controller Laura Chick over her plan to reduce gangs? At a Friday hearing in City Hall Cardenas was heard to tell Chick "Get out of my face!"