Los Angeles Politics Hotsheet for Monday

Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa does little work as mayor, spending his time bedding female reporters and scamming free Laker tickets.  The City of Bell - one of the poorest in LA County - pays it's officials Wall Street salaries. The Governor and State Legislature have driven the state into it's worst fiscal crisis ever. Approval ratings for local officials are in the toilet.  Yet, as noted by Bob Stern of the Center for Governmental Studies still "incumbents are getting elected."  And who are the dum dums?


Ethics Commissioner Marlene Canter is upset. "I took this seat to be relevant," Canter told the Daily News while accusing Commission staff of keeping the members in the dark on their investigation of Ticketgate.  "Ever since I've been here, I feel as if I've been kept in the dark," Canter said.

Speaking of the Mayor over the weekend he broke his elbow while bicycling.  The Mayor was riding on Venice Blvd when a taxi cut in front of him causing him to hit the pavement.  Many bicycle activists are saying perhaps the Mayor will now be more sympathetic to their cause.  Perhaps as well the Mayor will realize how wreckless taxi operators drive lately.  I've seen many around town speeding and often cut in front of other cars.  

Hopefully no one cried.  A truck carrying 12,000 pounds of onions flipped over Sunday morning on the transition roads between the 60 and 5 freeways.  The driver suffered minor injuries but did not require a hospital visit.  No one else was hurt.

Here in Van Nuys has a photo of the childhood home where superstar Betty White grew up in Los Angeles.  The Book Celebrities in the 1930 Census has a treasure trove of fascinating living information about various celebrities living here 80 years ago.  

Austin Mess: Bigger, Stinkier, Curiouser

Round one: Ben Austin, charter school leader, parent advocate and presumed favorite son of Mayor Villaraigosa fails to get sufficient signatures to qualify for the ballot to run for the school board seat being vacated by Marlene Canter. Austin claims that his political consultant, Sue Burnside, screwed the pooch including pulling over 300 signatures from the neighboring district of board member Marguerite Pointdexter LaMotte, hence not eligible to sign Austin's petition.

Round two: Sue Burnside issues a statement that she had nothing to do with Austin's ballot FUBAR; that she was out of town, unawares and that some mysterious figure misrepresented himself as her employee and bamboozled Austin. The Sister City identified this "mysterious figure" as allegedly Montebello Councilmember Robert Urteaga who at one time was listed as a member of Burnside's staff on her website.

"I was told that Burnside and Associates would take me as a client and gather signatures for our campaign. Robert Urteaga gathered our signatures on behalf of the firm."
Ben Austin

Round three: Via his website, Austin issues a statement calling Burnside's statement nothing but bunk saying "I called Burnside and Associates. I was told that Burnside and Associates would take me as a client and gather signatures for our campaign. Robert Urteaga gathered our signatures on behalf of the firm, told us that they had collected and validated the requisite amount of signatures -- until I later discovered that they had gathered signatures in the wrong district, and used the wrong list to validate the signatures."

In the meantime: Mayor Sam readers blast Burnside and smell something stinky, whether it was, at best, incompetence on Burnside and Urteaga's part or at worst, dirty tricks allegedly on the part of the two given their reported ties to the teachers' union, United Teachers Los Angeles and former Councilman Nick Pacheco, both not fans of the Mayor.

Sidenote: Back before the Mayor Sam bloggers outed themselves, Ben Austin was one of the many our readers thought was behind this blog. I deny any such charges.