Morning Briefs on the Los Angeles Political Machine for Wednesday

As a "Mayoral Reign of Failure" nears its just end, a lone Oak Tree stands as an example of hope succumbing to a hypocritical reality.

Then Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa and assorted political cast members, planting Esperanza (the hope) at the kickoff to the Million Tree Initiative.

For the mere scores who subjected themselves to Mayor Antonio Villar's teleprompter-read tribute to self, in his last "State of a Ethically and Fiscally Bankrupt City Speech", they need only to view the photos below to grasps the reality behind the choreographed facade of a "Pop Star Mayor", turned "Political Failure". Many, including myself, were in attendance that beautiful day as Mayor Villar, announced a grand vision of a "Million Tree Canopy" (....... and a two year timeline for restoring the Hazard Park Wetlands), that would be a part of a great green legacy for the "Latino Environmentalist".  

One of the 20 trees facing death at Hazard Park.

Yet, as we near the final days of the eight years of a "Mayoral Reign of Failure", the blunt political reality of the true Mayor Villar's "green vision" is evident to all along the Soto Street side of Hazard Park, about 200 yards away from "the oak of hope". The true "green vision" of Mayor Villar, is predicated on the financing of the political interest and upward mobility of the former "Tony Villar". USC has always been the willing Special Interest in pushing the political agenda of Mayor Villar. Thus, Hazard Park was placed in a redevelopment zone, that benefited USC's capital building program.

A row of "arbor tombstones" awaiting the reality of Mayor Villar's (and Councilman Huizar) true "Green Vision".

Come July 1, 2013, Mayor Villar will revert once again to being just "Tony", but in hope of preserving a historic green preserve, lets hope that lets hope that in the spirit of preserving a semblance of a legacy, Mayor Villar and his ally CD 14 City Councilman Jose Huizar will not cement themselves a future memorial to themselves as environmental hypocrites.

Your thoughts .................

Scott Johnson in CD 14.

Morning Briefs on the Los Angeles Political Machine for Wednesday

LAUSD School Board Member Monica "Gorda Boo Boo" Garcia's reign as School Board President, will end on July 1, 2013.

"Gorda Boo Boo" not too happy with vote targeting her reign as LAUSD's School Board President. 

The reigning heavyweight of local reality politics will meet her demise come July 1, 2013.

On the same day Mayor Antonio Villar vacates his office, his LAUSD mouthpiece Monica "Gorda Boo Boo" will most likely lose the title of School Board President. This after former board ally Steve Zimmer voted with three other members to cap her terms as the presiding board member.

LA Times Education Scribe Howard Blume noted that ...........

 The term-limits vote Tuesday symbolized the waning influence of L.A. Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa as his own eight-year tenure in office ends. Although the mayor has no formal authority over the board, candidates he helped elect make up a board majority. Garcia is the mayor’s closest ally on the board, and yet a member of mayor’s bloc, Richard Vladovic, defected to favor the term-limits proposal.

It has been rumored that Vladovic would flip pending the outcome of the recent LAUSD Elections and with Zimmer winning another term, the spotlight was on him at yesterday's proceedings on Beaudry, as noted by the LA School Report Blog.

As this was the first Board meeting since the March 5 election, observers were watching to see what effect, if any, the bitter primary campaign had on Zimmer. The incumbent District 4 Board member was attacked relentlessly by the Coalition for School Reform, which supported Garcia in a separate race.Zimmer insisted that the election had no effect on him.  ”I’m not changed… You’ll still see more hand-wringing from me.”Asked to explain his change of vote, Zimmer said that, “Since the position has become so powerful, four years is a good time to moderate that power.” 

....... and we can think of one Charter School Certification that merits a second review.

** Attention LA Mayoral Voters!! Please note that Mayoral Candidate City Controller Wendy "The Villar Greuel" is channeling United States Secretary of State John F-ing Kerry (who BTW, fought in Viet Nam). This is clearly evident in the fact of her being for re-opening pension reforms negotiations (in seeking the LA County Federation of Labor support), before coming out against the proposal (in seeking the LA Chamber of Commerce support), in today's "Old Gray Collectivist Hag on Spring Street.

** In the tight race to replace CD 1 City Councilman Ed "Density" Reyes, third place candidate Jesse Rojas has announced his support of Gil Cedillo, if the race proceeds to a runoff, pending the final count of votes.

** The Downtown News opines on the adverse affects that the litigious 2012 Redistricting Commission debacle had on the turnout for the CD 9 City Council Elections and on the campaign of Jan Perry for Mayor.

** LA Weekly's Patrick Range McDonald is right when it comes to Mayor Villar's "Legacy Issues" pertaining to his Million Trees Initiative. In the spirit of bloggin cooperation, we provide this photographing reinforcement of McDonald's premise for his morning post.

Link here for the story behind the pending Hazard Park Tree Kill.

Your thoughts ..............

Scott Johnson in CD 14

Morning Briefs on the Los Angeles Political Machine for Tuesday

Ron Kaye: "Wake Up Call for Wendy, Jan, Kevin and Eric: Here Comes Rick Caruso into the Mayor’s Race with a Blank Check".

Is a Mayoral Press Conference in Developer Rick Caruso's future? 

The Era of Hamlet is over.

That would be the "political Hamlet era" of Developer Rick Caruso, if Ron Kaye's recent post on the supposed mayoral candidate to be, comes to fruition.

Some background via Kaye's post.

The word is that he’s telling friends hemight will announce he is running within two weeks and already is lining up a TV ad buy to promote his candidacy after the presidential election in November.One source said that billionaire-philanthropist Eli Broad held a fund-raising event last week to put a tough pension reform measure on the ballot and went around personally asking everyone in the room how much they would put into the kitty.Caruso reportedly begged off, saying he would soon be facing a lot of political expenses.How much, he was asked.Without hesitation, he reportedly said: “$15 to $20 million.”

The thud sounds you just heard were "The Valley Greuel", Garcetti and assorted city unions check books, falling to the ground.

** Paging the City Controller! We see some great auditing potential (and media coverage) in finding the waste in the higher-than-industry-average salaries paid to DWP employees. But would an audit of DWP salaries run counter to the "suggestions" of The Valley Greuel's "bag man" IBEW Strongman Brian D'Arcy?

** While the likes of Eli "Lord Broad", former Mayor Richard Riordan, the "Mini-Riordans" and others raise money to finance a measure to bring about pension reform, hundreds of union members will protest at City Hall. In addition, LA Times David Zahniser is reporting that union chiefs are talking lawsuit, if the City Council supports Mayor Antonio Villar's pension reforms.

** Downtown News Editor Jon Regardie is on the receiving end of AEG's LA LIVE City State Strongman Tim LIEweke's spin job, pertaining to the pending sale of the city-finance entertainment mini-state. We should note that the approval process for the proposed Farmers Field, steamroll onwards to its appointed final vote in the City Council.

** BREAKING NEWS! Pending Tree Kill at CD 14's Hazard Park!! ** The location of the kickoff to Mayor Villar's "Million Tree Initiative" (minus the trees to be kill to make way for the "Trojan Horse of Development"). 

 Congratulations indeed to Sierra Club endorsed CD 14 City Councilman Jose Huizar for his latest act of political hypocrisy, in supporting the pending deaths of mature Sycamore trees at the location of Mayor Antonio Villar's Million Tree Debacle.

The Mayor and "a wannabee mayor" planting "Esperanza" at Million Trees Kickoff. Esperanza would transpire tears at Councilman Huizar's tree-killing actions on behalf of USC. 

 Now at the end of a "mayoral reign of failure", did Million Trees Executive Director Lisa Sarno personally tape these death sentence notice to each tree?

All these trees to the base of the hill will face death to make way for the "Trojan Horse of Progress" at USC Health Science Campus. Once again public input be damned and the hypocrisy of supposed community leaders will lead to this senseless slaughter.

Your thoughts ..............

Scott Johnson in CD 14

Mayor Sam's Hotsheet for Thursday

I guess it's one thing for City employees to buy bottled water on the City's dime when the DWP supposedly has perfectly good tap water; it's the height of hubris for the Los Angeles County Supervisors to pay someone to peel the brand name labels off water the County purchases and affix a County label to them.  Who's boneheaded idea was this? Zev's?

Mayor Villaraigosa wants to plant a million trees in Los Angeles.  He just planted another 55.  According to the LA Weekly, at the current rate, Villaraigosa will have planted his million trees sometime by the 2020s, well past his time as Mayor.  In the meantime, New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg is well ahead of schedule in his tree plantings.

Westside White Guy didn't get his invite.  Mayor Villaraigosa held a birthday party bash for former California Speaker and San Francisco Mayor Willie Brown (to get Willie's endorsment for Governor?) at Getty House recently. WWG assumes the Times didn't get an invitation either or forgot about because (GASP!) America's Favorite Suburban Crank had to read about the party in the San Francisco Chronicle.  Kevin, the question to ask is not what did the Los Angeles Times know and when did they know it but were any public resources expended on this non-City business event?

What was loaded on the iPod that President Obama gave Britain's Queen Elizabeth? Besides some photos of past visits to the US by Her Majesty, a greatest hits of oratory by The One, himself.

Efforts to rebrand a portion of Van Nuys as Sherman Oaks do not appear to be picking up much support outside the group behind the campaign.  Besides opposition from both the Sherman Oaks and Van Nuys Neighborhood Councils, Van Nuys based Councilmember Tony Cardenas is against it.  The area's other Council Member, Wendy Greuel is remaining neutral.  At a recent community event, I heard whispers that rebranding effort leader, LA's solution in search of a problem, Laurette Healey, is rumored to be using the effort to jump into the race to replace Greuel who will become City Controller in July.

LA Times archictecture critic Christopher Hawthorne is the first person to frame the billboard issue in a rational light.  While Hawthorne views that the city's policy is broken and that much signage is often schlock he does not see billboards as the latest scourge since Al Quaeda or Rock of Love Bus with Brett Michaels as do a small but very vocal band of billboard wackos.  Hawthorne also makes a point that I've made to local activitsts that crime and other issues in our city far outweigh the singage hysteria, which is refreshing.

Franklin Avenue picks up on Mickey Kaus' bizarre plea for someone to bankroll a Westside newspaper. I thought we had that, it's called the LA Times? And if you want a myopic Westside view that is more immediate than fishwrap, you can always find it here.  The Westside wants a newspaper? Yea, people in Hell want ice water.

Mayor Sam's Hotsheet for Monday

Rudd High School, Rudd, Iowa. Photo by Mayor Sam

Looks like the website for former Mayor galpal Mirthala Salinas' upcoming wedding to real estate agent Yanni Raz has been taken down. Curbed LA and Franklin Avenue linked to the site last week; but click on the link now and you get an error. Google's cache however can show you at least some of what was there. The best part of the site is a section called "My Woman is Back on Track Again."

The LA Times reports that more and more non-Latino elected City officials are speaking bilingually these days. Laura Chick, Wendy Greuel and Jan Perry have began to speak in Spanish as well as English; though the 52 year old Perry once told someone she was pregnant when she meant embarrassed.

El LA Times informa que más eligió a la Ciudad de los funcionarios que no son latinos son bilingües hablando estos días. Laura Chick, Wendy Greuel y Jan Perry uso de la palabra en español y en Inglés, aunque los 52 años de edad, Perry dijo una vez alguien que estaba embarazada cuando ella significaba avergonzado.

This might be some good information for Zev's Mayoral campaign. He's been saying that the current zoning "as is" allows for the construction of enough housing to meet LA's forecast needs without developers or politicians needing variances or other big changes to existing plans, law and codes. A new study confirms that.

Daily News columnist Mariel Garza doesn't get it in a recent screed on illegal aliens and the economy. Her point is the economy sucks, so fewer jobs means illegal aliens will be incentivized to come here and the racists who hate them should be happy. The point is that the concern over illegal immigration - and chiefly illegal immigrants who are gang members - is not about racism or any other red herring you want to toss out there. What is it about the word illegal do you not get. And the honest truth is that it's the illegal and legal gang members who are terrorizing their own the most and who are hurt the most. Not those whom you refer to as racists.

On the other hand the News had a great op-ed piece Sunday from Doug McIntyre. He points out the usual liberal hypocrisy (much of what we saw in the comments section here over the weekend) of the City Clowncil when it comes to Jamiel's death: Politicians are either indifferent or uncomfortable talking about a Black youth murdered by a Latino. Had Pedro Espinosa been Peter Epperson Council Members like Richard Alarcon, Bill Rosendahl, Ed Reyes et al would be blaming talkradio for Jamiel's murder. The saddest part of it all mentioned in Doug's piece (and pointed out as well by Zuma Dogg in the comments here) is the joking, laughing and lack of attentiveness by Council Members during Anita Shaw's address, leading her nine year old son to ask his mother "Why are they laughing?"

The Mayor has a goal to plant a million trees in LA. He's claiming credit for having planted over a 100,000 so far. David Zahniser (via Siel at the LA Times eco-blog) spills the beans that the city includes in that count thousands of little seedlings handed out to people as "planted" whether there's any verification if the baby trees were placed in the ground or not. Yet again, the usual song & dance and smoke & mirrors from the Mayor's office.

Remember the name Jim Beall. He's an idiot Democratic (what else) Assemblyman from San Jose who wants to increase the tax on beer some 1500%. No word yet on what Gail Goldberg thinks of the plan.

Actors Glenn Close and Ethan Hawke were part of 1400 Screen Actors Guild members who circulated a petition insisting that only actors who work regularly (traditionally a small percentage of SAG's overall membership) should be allowed to vote on the union's next contract with producers.

They don't want any more jails in Lancaster. Rick Orlov reports that residents near the Mira Loma Detention Center are adamant about constructing a new jail there.

Britney Spears has done it again. She rear ended another vehicle with her Mercedes on the freeway Saturday night.

In the Former Fishwrap of Record, Richard S. Ginell reviews conductor Ivan Fischer shepherding the premiere of Richard Strauss' "Also Sprach Zarathustra" at Walt Disney Concert Hall on Friday night. Ginell recounts the excitement upon hearing that all too familiar first bass note, but was a bit disappointed overall, saying "the performance seemed to give in to the temptation of losing itself in all that color while sacrificing propulsion and power." Of course, there's always this cool version of "Sprach" below: