Mayor Sam's Hotsheet for Friday

Fishbowl LA is the latest blog to cover the dust-up between Mayor Villaraigosa and the LA Weekly.  You may remember the Weekly published a piece in September that blew the lid off how little time the Mayor actually spends working. Then last week Villaraigosa boasted to Rick Orlov that the Weekly's piece was a slam based on the fact that he had not provided them with his actual calendar records.  That led to Mayor spokes-flack Matt Szabo probably having to reach for some Maalox and issuing a retraction for the Mayor's comments.  Stay tuned. 

Former Department of Neighborhood Empowerment director Greg Nelson recaps his predictions for 2008, mostly all dealing with great things the City could have done to take the system of Neighborhood Councils seriously, none of which came true. Hoping to be more accurate at the end of this year Nelson predicts "that 2009 will be another year throughout which the empowerment of neighborhood councils will be ignored."

Mayor Sam's Hotsheet for Sunday

Mayor Villaraigosa supposedly has a plan to deal with the City's multi-million dollar budget deficit. The rotten economy has caused a severe reduction in the receipt of sales and other taxes by the City. Significant layoffs of City workers are expected.  Of course if the Mayor would stop raising taxes he might actually see an increase in revenues.  Funny how things work that way.

Yet another Metrolink train has hit a freight train where it shares tracks.  This time in Rialto an eastbound Metrolink train hit the end of a westbound Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railway train that was pulling onto a siding from the main track just west of the Rialto station.  The voters passed a mega-billion dollar bond that will build a high-speed train from Fresno to LA that will share right-of-way with the beleagured Metrolink. God help us.

Zuma Dogg caught Gavin Newsom driving his state-of-the art SUV and parking in a fire lane in Malibu this past summer.  Now the San Francisco Mayor is taking heat back home for the SUV use and for having what appears to be an excessive use of security personnel.  KGO television takes the Mayor to task and even quotes the Dogg in their report.

Speaking of Zuma Dogg, the Mayoral candidate reports that he's received his 500th petition signature to get his name on the ballot.  Every petition circulator however knows it is wise to get several hundred more signatures than necessary because not everyone who signs is actually a registered voter or a City resident.  Zuma reports on some of the events he's attended to get signatures showing grass roots politics in action.

Members of the City's system of Neighborhood Councils want the ability to initiate "Council files" which could eventually force City Council action on issues of importance to the local panels. However, a number of City Council members feel that in exchange for this "power" Neighborhood Council members should be required to submit some form of financial disclosure form.  Former Department of Neighborhood Empowerment Manager Greg Nelson opines at LA CityWatch that the price for this "privilege" may be "too high."

And finally the struggling economy may find more folks going homeless and forced to live in their cars.  Though many of LA's residents have truly "mobile homes" it's technically against the law to sleep in your car in Los Angeles.  Council Member Bill Rosendahl is looking to change that.

And now a few moments with Greg Nelson

One of our readers posted this gem:

Sorry Higby, but now what he's the main writer for Citywatch, Greg Nelson has become the "Andy Rooney" commentator on all things City Hall, a doddering, out-of-touch, deposed king among gadflies.

He's using his extra time now to recycle all the inane memos he sent upstairs while working for two mayors, and which all got promptly ash-canned because they were . . . well, inane.

- "Didja ever notice that 'Public Works' can be a noun and a complete sentence?"

- "Why is it that the notices from the city's EARLY Notification System, always come out in the LATE afternoon?"

- "BONC would be much better suited to do what DONE does, and have DONE do what BONC does now. I don't know why, it just looked pretty when I diagrammed it in crayon on my placemat at Denny's this morning."

- Neighorhood councils were created to teach stakeholders how to blow bubbles without getting soap on their shirts. Look it up; it's in the revised city charter."

- "They have neighborhood councils in Butte, Montana, you know, and their board members get to park their cars on sidewalks without getting tickets. We should try that."


Ignore him. Not like in "ignore him and he'll go away" - because he has nowhere to go, but you'll be less frustrated if you do.

Mayor Sam's Hotsheet for Friday

Did anyone read Greg Nelson's last post on CityWatch? I am not really sure what he was talking about; something to the effect of attracting better candidates for the City's Neighborhood Councils having something to do with whether or not the City provides public funding for sports stadiums. If you figure it out; let me know.

The New York Observer is reporting that New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg is holding a fund-raiser for Mayor Villaraigosa in the Big Apple next month. No truth to the rumor that Chicago Mayor Richard M. Daley is planning a benefit for Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky's mayoral campaign.

We mentioned Bitter Bernie's telephone campaign on behalf of postage stamps; one blogger asks a great question: why didn't Bernie call his constituents before the price of stamps went up? In the meantime, while Bernie was busy telling stakeholders their comments to the Council were not necessary, he received the endorsement of Magic Johnson.

Interesting article in the LA Weekly about the recent State Supreme Court decision permitting gays to marry in California. At the time the case was about to go through "tolerant" Democrats squirmed and wanted to stick it back in the closet. But it was Republican judges that made the difference.

And finally, we teased a new writer here on the blog Thursday. We won't torture you anymore; we're pleased to announce that Jamiel Shaw, Sr. - father of murdered teenager Jamiel Shaw, II - will be joining the blog as a contributor to share his thoughts on a number of issues. Stay tuned for Jamiel's first post very soon.

Saturday Special Hotsheet

San Francisco has always been goofy but can you believe they are actually spending money to advertise to bring illegal aliens to the city to get government welfare services? The city is spending nearly $100,000 to advertise it's sanctuary city status. Does that include free bus fare for gangbangers? Lets give them some free advertising right here. We'd be glad to send folks up there.

I should probably blog this on Monday but a reader sent in a correction to our post about Luke Ford's story on Kevin Roderick's alleged lies about his Pulitzer Prizes. Seems I may have been a bit too charitable to the Westside White Guy. I said that Roderick was an editor on the stories that won the awards. According to our tipster, old Kev was an editor at the Times but did not edit the prize winning pieces. I guess that's like if you work at a TV station who has a show that wins an Emmy you could call yourself an Emmy winner. Our source told me that Roderick "is a fraud; at the very least his claim is bogus." Stay tuned.

Wacko Jacko has the thinnest kids and Bitter Bernie has the fattest. Someone has actually taken it upon themselves (with a hefty dose of your money) to do a study on childhood obesity by Council District. Of course, they're probably going to recommend all kinds of government programs. I have a program that works - its called personal choice. If you don't put the shit in your mouth, you lose weight. It's amazing folks, I can tell its absolutely true.

The Foothill Cities Blog has an interview with Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton with the Presidential candidate giving some amazing answers.

That wacky dude who is allegedly the voice behind Captain Jack, Greg Nelson, has a piece in the latest edition of Citywatch celebrating NIMBYs. Captain Jack, uh, I mean Greg compares folks who oppose new housing as well as those who fought freeways we could have used now to American revolutionaries. Me thinks Greg be having a bit too much of the grape, savvy?

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?

How to Cut the City Budget

Greg Nelson writing at LA City Watch covers the growing city budget deficit and comes up with some interesting ideas on how to streamline city expenses.

• Eliminate the five Board of Public Works positions; saving over $500,000.
• Sell the workers’ comp system
• Consolidate city and county elections
• Reduce City Council budgets- Nelson notes that the size of Council staffs in the nation’s largest cities is about one-third that of Los Angeles’.
• Voluntary privatization- Teams of city employees may be able to perform certain services more efficiently and at less cost if they could escape the city’s suffocating bureaucracy.
• Sell bonds on the Internet
• Consolidate the meter readers- Why doesn’t DWP contract with The Gas Company to read the electric meters? Or better yet, install WiFi devices to the meters so that no one has to go into the field.
• Create a special DWP rate for city government- The City owns DWP but it pays them from the General Fund for power and water use, which doesn’t make any sense.

Besides Nelson, Walter Moore also got his accountant pen out and let out lots of red ink. If the City were to eliminate the following five line items alone over one billion dollars could be saved.

1. Rental monkeys at the LA Zoo
2. Rental monkeys pen
3. Annual subsidies for real estate developers including over $200 million for the Grand Avenue and LA Live developers alone
4. An elephant pen for two elephants at the LA Zoo
5. Questionable "anti-gang"programs

Moore's entire Spreadsheet of Shame details nearly $2 billion in city budget savings by eliminating costly, ridiculous and unneeded government programs.

Keep that in mind the next time a politician tells you we have to increase taxes.