Behind Pothole Politics is a $3 Billion Bill!

Smile, boys!

Facebook pages were chock full of pictures of our Mayor and newest Council Members donning work vests and hard hats, filling pot holes as part of "Operation Neighborhood Council Blitz," where neighborhood council members were given some sense of "empowerment" in tabulating and submitting lists of potholes for repair consideration.

Potholes are a really good issue for politicians to go after because it's something simple to understand, creates great pictures for television and the papers and the idea of filling potholes generally offends no one.

Indeed, one local neighborhood council's video production company was on the scene where Mayor Garcetti gave a stand-up, impromptu speech on the effort of the day. Later, the Mayor "kicked it" with street services workers recounting the various neighborhoods they had visited filling potholes. 

We all appreciate any potholes that can be filled. LA is legend for them. In fact, after San Jose, LA has the worst graded condition streets of any city in the nation by international road condition standards.

The problem is when it's yet another photo opp with something worse lurking behind the corner.

That something worse is a currently on life support plan for the City to place a $3 billion - and yes that's billion with a B - bond measure on the ballot, one that is intended to repair our local streets, but we all know what happens with bond measures and blank checks. 

That filling potholes and maintaining city streets is not such an essential municipal function that the cost for such should be borne out of the city general fund from all the taxes and fees we are already paying is incredible. What are they spending this money on? Anyone who followed the Mayoral race knows that a huge piece of the City's debt comes from higher than industry average pay rates offered to the unions that support politicians and gold plated pensions the leadership of these unions have been able to get from elected officials. 

Jack Humphreville, a local business (he owns the Recycler Paper!) and an impassioned local advocate who is adept at rooting out waste, fraud and abuse in city government goes into deeper detail about the bond measure in this piece at The Fox and Hounds blog. Jack offers up what should be very strict rules and reforms IF such a bond measure is even to go through. 

Get ready to open up your checkbook!

Friday Free for All

Blogged on board Virgin America Flight 944 somewhere over Oxnard.

Eric Garcetti is bugged by potholes.

West Hollywood City Council candidate Mito Aviles likes mannequins.

In other West Hollywood City Council candidate Scott Schmidt is calling for an investigation into the finances of longtime incumbent John Heilman.  Heliman as reported spending $0 for his campaign yet folks are getting mailers and door hangers.

Los Angeles Politics Hotsheet for Wednesday: The Bad Day for Jose Huizar Edition

It could not get worse, Tuesday, for Councilman Jose Huizar. How could such awful things happen to a Princeton educated nice guy?

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Last Los Angeles Politics Hotsheet of 2010

A group of public housing residents who had protested at the home of LA's Housing Authority head, Rudolf Montiel, and then found themselves evicted saw their evictions overturned by the agency Thursday. When the evictions first became public a few months ago, several members of the City Council expressed outrage.  In addition to overturning the evictions, the agency settle with the residents to pay their legal fees and provide computers onsite.

Councilman Dennis Zine will recuse himself from voting on an LAX contract because his girlfriend is an employee of one of the bidders.  Zine has been reportedly dating Veronica Becerra, who works for contractor Tutor Perini who wants a $270 million contract to build a utility plant at the airport.  Airport staff however have recommended to the Council the bid by a competing firm.

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Los Angeles Politics Hotsheet for Wednesday

Despite it's general left leaning and pro-open borders stand, the Latino Politics Blog has never been afraid to take on establishment politicians who happen to be Latino, usually when it's pretty clear said elected is screwing the rank and file.  Ergo, it's recent look at Councilman Jose Huizar.  Weezy, as documented by this blog as well as the LA Weekly, is getting all kinds of questions about his management of a fund set up to mitigate the effects of a recycling center on the community.  It seems as if Huizar needs to provide an accounting soon as he faces a tough re-election campaign against popular opponent Rudy Martinez.

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Antonio Villaraigosa: Let's Double The Number of Potholes!

Mayor Sam's Hotsheet for Wednesday

Former President and CEO of the Century City Chamber of Commerce Robyn Ritter Simon has announced she's raised over $100,000 in her efforts to get elected to the 5th Council District seat to be vacated by Jack Weiss next year. Other candidates who have announced for the race are former Assemblyman Paul Koretz, who represented West Hollywood and also served on the West Hollywood City Council before moving to Los Angeles; land-use attorney Ron Galperin; and businessman David T. Vahedi, who ran against Weiss four years ago.

How are hard working, tax paying, decent citizens who are fighting for their community treated by a wannabe bureaucrat who trades on her politician husband's name? Searched for weapons and watched like hawks by police officers. That's what happened on the orders of Avis Ridley-Thomas of the City of Los Angeles Dispute Resolution Office when leaders from Sunland-Tujunga came to inspect important city files related to the controversial effort to place a Home Depot store in their community. Will officials from Home Depot get the same treatment? Ridley-Thomas says yes, but I tend to doubt it.

Where are the worst potholes in LA?The Daily News is mapping them out! Using Google Maps technology readers can submit the locations of potholes and add important details. Perhaps the Mayor can download those to his BlackBerry (or Jose Huizar's BlackBerry) and go out and fill them.

We talked the other day about the need to allow MTA commuters to take their bikes on buses and trains and the efforts of Councilman Eric Garcetti to get the transit agency to relax their rules. The LA Times reports however that folding bikes are allowed at any time on the train. I first saw these types of bikes when my grandparents brought back two of them from a vacation in Europe in the early 70s. They can be quite compact and easy to tote. However some wonder given the condition of LA's roads if these bikes are sturdy enough for safe travel.

Former State Contoller and Democratic candidate for Governor Steve Westly has donated $100,000 to the Green Dot Charter School at Locke High School. Westly who rose to prominence in Democratic party politics made a substantial portion of his fortune as one of the founders of eBay.

And finally you'll be seeing a new voice here on the blog: Althea Shaw. Althea is the sister of Jamiel Shaw, Sr. and the aunt of Jamiel Shaw, II. Ms. Shaw will share her experience as one of the leaders of the movement to pass Jamiel's Law as well as news from her local community. Welcome Althea!