Los Angeles Politics Hotsheet for Thursday

The Village to Village blog publishes a statement from longtime Valley activist Jill Banks Barad in support of Paul Krekorian for CD2. Barad notes that the winner of this election will be the chair of City Council’s Education & Neighborhoods Committee which oversees the City's system of Neighborhood Councils. The prospect of Chris Essel chairing this committee frightens Neighborhood Council board members as Barad says "As president of the Central City Association, Chris Essel represented that organization as favoring financial disclosure forms for neighborhood council members, which she reinforced at a recent candidates forum." The blog has extended a similar invitation to any leader who wishes to speak on behalf of Essel. So far no one has.

Rather than letting architects design buildings and have cops bust the heads of taggers the City Council has done it ass-backwards and passed a law requiring that new homes built in the City of Los Angeles must be covered in a graffitti resistant material such as baked enamel. In referring to the move Clowncilman Bill "Open Shirt" Rosendahl said “Wouldn’t it be great if we didn’t have to spend this much money?” Wish they would ask that all the time!

Not so pleasant Betty Pleasant is at it again. After her wacky theories on the streetcars in LA (an urban myth handily debunked here), that the recent switch to digital television was some sort of Bush Administration conspiracy and her screeds against City Council Member Bernard Parks (the only Council member who attempts to impose some fiscal sanity on the Clowncil) she's back again claiming that a recent LA Times story on a Federal investigation into Parks' former opponent Mark Ridley-Thomas has Parks' "DNA all over it." Of course Betty doesn't tell you that the campaign supporting Ridley-Thomas paid Plesant's newspaper, The Los Angeles Wave, nearly $200,000 for campaign advertising.

Good article in the LA Times deconstructs how out of touch Hollywood is with the rest of LA and America on the Roman Polanski issue.  Though some try to make it a political issue those on both the right and the left have condemned Polanski's violent child rape and bringing him to justice.  Though its no surprise Woody Allen is on Polanski's side those who have read the gory details in the transcript of the victim's testimony are convinced of the heinousness of Polanski's crimes despite the spin of some in the media.

Mayor Sam's Hotsheet for Saturday

After months and months of delays caused by NIMBY nonsense and union politics, the City Council reversed course and will allow Providence Holy Cross Medical Center to resume construction of a much needed expansion to provide trauma services. Kerry Carmody, Chief Operating Officer for Providence Health Services, said “This isn’t just a great day for Providence Holy Cross, it’s a big victory for our entire community.” The Providence system - a nearly 150 year old organization of Catholic nuns who created it as a ministry - is one of the few non-profit hospital systems left and is widely recognized for it's excellent medical care.

Rick Orlov reports the crowd is lining up of potential candidates to replace Wendy Greuel on the City Council when she assumes the Controller position in July.  All the usual suspects include School Board Member Tamar Galatzan (who said she wouldn't run, former Assembly Member Cindy Montanez (who made a deal two years ago not to run for CD7), Jack Weiss field deputy Joan Pelico, Studio City Neighborhood Council President Ben Neumann and former Sherman Oaks Neighborhood Council President Ken Gerston.  However the fly in the ointment for this would be candidates is that the City Council has the power to opt to appoint a successor to Greuel instead of calling for an election. Insiders tell me that a deal is potentially in the works between the Council and Mayor to appoint Montanez - as payback for her dutiful loyalty - and to cite budget issues and election fatigue as a reason to forgo a special election.  Stay tuned.

PoliticalReformBlog.com is right when they say that the process for allowing elected officials to create the name and ballot summary for questions submitted to the people is broken.  This is what allows items like Measure B to go to the ballot as "Good Jobs and Green Living" or the Measure S phony cell phone tax increase that was called a tax cut.  However their idea of paying random voters $1000 to sit down and work out a description is ridiculous.  A better plan would be to create a panel of retired judges, three Democrats, three Republicans and three from all other parties who would hash out and create the titles and ballot summaries.

The City Council got a report from Caltrans that's startling. 75% of all landscaped areas along LA's freeways are in need of rehabilitation, and about 90% of the vegetation is at or near the end of its natural life. Additionally 7,622,234 square feet of graffiti was removed from along freeways in the district last year at a cost of $2.7 million. Let's put the punks who create this graffiti blight - as well as their parents if they're minors - handle doing some of the landscape and clean-up work while we charge them for the damage.

Jack Hoff to L.A. City Council: Stop Graffiti NOW!

The scenic route

Photo by Riley Behling

Congratulations to Sunday’s first place finishers, Tatiana Aryasova, a Russian and Laban Moiben of Kenya. Aryasova crossed the finish line 4 minutes, 18 seconds ahead of Moiben to win the $100,000 "Banco Popular Challenge."

More than 26,000 runners, including participants from all 50 states and 100 nations, are participating in Sunday's 23rd Annual Los Angeles Marathon, making it the fourth largest among U.S. races and seventh largest in the world, according to organizers.

For the second consecutive year, the 26-mile, 385-yard race is being run on a "point-to-point" course with the start and finish in different places.

Previous: Marathon enthusiasm sandbagged by unpopular route

Smile! You’re On Camera

Chicago’s doing it. Baltimore, New Orleans, and D.C. are doing it—hell, even Frisco is doing it. So, should we be doing it? Should we accelerate police camera deployment in L.A.’s worst neighborhoods to help fight crime?

The idealist in me warns of a slippery slope, but the realist sees what cameras did for MacArthur Park (hat tip: CM Reyes), what they’re doing for east Valley residents (hat tip: CM Greuel), and wants the same for my neighborhood.

Of course, police cameras wouldn’t replace the need for police (we probably need seven times the 1,000 officers promised by Mayor Villaraigosa) but they would help officers police the streets more effectively—catching criminals in the act, helping secure convictions, and reducing response times.

Critics argue we are exchanging privacy for the promise of safer cities without accountability or evidence that cameras reduce crime, but the results have been real in Chicago; a drop in murders and over 1,400 camera-assisted arrests since February 2006. Once standoffish, residents reportedly now welcome them as the city mulls another phase of high-tech devices able to analyze images in real time.

I appreciate the privacy concerns. On the other hand, I see graffiti and gang activity trending upward, police recruitment barely keeping pace with retirement, inexcusable incompetence downtown, and I’m growing impatient.

What’s your take?