Morning Brief on the Los Angeles Political Machine for Tuesday

There is no minimum amount of critical musing when it comes to panning a pirating of a Campaign Gimmick for political gain.

The pirating of a "Campaign Gimmick" stimulates creative use of Photoshop.

** Ron Kaye's thoughts on pirating a Campaign Gimmick into a new Policy Initiative .......,

WHO WE ARE-It was the closing days of the dreariest mayoral campaign imaginable and the unions that so heavily backed the indecisive Wendy Greuel flooded the city’s poor neighborhoods with mailings and sound trucks blaring with the good news: $15 an hour minimum wage if she wins. 

Eric Garcetti was beside himself, denouncing Greuel for taking the millions of dollars in union money he wished he’d gotten and calling the ploy to nearly double the minimum wage a "cynical attempt to buy votes." It gives, he told reporters, “false hope to people who are struggling to make ends meet … a $15 minimum wage, that sets up a false expectation." You can’t call Garcetti a total hypocrite for coming out on Labor Day in support of raising the minimum wage 22 percent every year to bring it to $13.25 an hour by 2017 when he will be seeking re-election. Maybe he’s only a three-quarters hypocrite though you can bet all you’ve got it will get to $15 an hour soon enough.

** A blogging flashback moment via Jack Humphreville as he muses on the upcoming CD 14 Campaign between Jose Huizar, Gloria Molina (and John Perez?) ........,
Huizar is also embroiled in a couple of scandals, including a 2012 car accident which the City settled for $185,000 in March of 2014. The major scandal involves a sexual harassment lawsuit filed by Francine Godoy, his former aide, alleging that married Huizar retaliated against her for refusing to continue their sexual relationship.  During her tenure in his office, the very attractive Godoy’s salary increased from $47,000 in 2006 to $132,000 in 2013, during which time she moved into an adjoining office to Huizar that had a specially constructed connecting door.

** LA Downtown News Editor and reigning "Scribe of Wit" Jon Regardie is no one's fool in musing his cynical thoughts (mixed with facetious word play) about a proposed voter lottery to stimulate turnout at the polls ........,
OK, I’m being facetious, but as mentioned above, how about looking at cash payouts only after trying other steps? Those steps, by the way, include having city politicians acknowledge that their attempts at career longevity are part of the problem. Actually, they’re about 88% of the problem. Get-out-the-vote efforts by politicians who target their own constituencies are much more effective for them when the voting pool is miniscule. That and other machinations mean many local elections are highly, if legally, manipulated. Said another way, local balloting is increasingly more a coronation than an election. While theoretically anyone can run for any office, the power of entrenched office holders and political machines, including big-money labor and business groups, means that choice is quashed long before election day.

Your thoughts ...............,
Scott Johnson in CD 14



Mayor Sam's Hotsheet for Tuesday

"Vendido"

Photo by Ted Soqui, LA Weekly

 Chalk up a victory for the billboard wackos.  A federal judge has upheld for a now the City Council's ban on billboards and supergraphics despite the fact most real people don't care. Despite the setback for Liberty Media Corp. a City Attorney's office official says that the case could eventually go forward.  Additionally another 20 lawsuits against the city are pending.  How much will that cost and are the billboard wackos prepared to pony up?

Tired of illegal dumping and other reportable to 311 woes in your neighborhood? If you have an Apple iPhone, Curbed LA reports you can use the device to snap photos and upload the complaint directly to City computers.  The CitySource app can read your GPS position and easily tag the issue for City action.

Voter turnout in the recent CD2 election was abysmally low as are most City elections. One solution may be to follow the lead of cities like Burbank and states like Oregon who conduct elections by mail only.  Though LA's City Clerk has recomended this move for some time, the Clowncil has been relucatant to consider it.  Always on top of things City Councilman Bill "Open Shirt" Rosendahl told Rick Orlov "I really regret the low turnout, but that's what happens in these elections when there is so little media attention." Yea, it's the media's fault Bill.


As DWP infrastructure continues to crumble, more signs of the coming appocalypse following years of shoddy management and stealing from the utility by the City Council.  A short power outage of unknown origin hit Downtown LA Monday striking many skyscrapers causing stuck elevators and the like. Then, another water main broke, this time in the Miracle Mile discontinuing service to about four dozen homes.

And finally things continue to get curiouser in the recent defacing of a mural of Mayor Villaraigosa in East Hollywood.  As previously noted here on the blog, vandals splashed the face of the Mayor with red paint and scrawled on the sidewalk below the mural "This is Our Town."  LA Weekly photographer Ted Soqui revisited the mural last Friday and see that someone has painted the word vendido on the Mayor's shirt collar, a term that is Spanish for "sell-out" or "Uncle Tom."  The Weekly reports that the red paint and "our town" remain but "vendido" has since been removed.

Mayor Sam's Hotsheet for Thursday

82% of voters turned out to vote in Tuesday's election in Los Angeles County, the most since 86% turned out in 1968.  Though many showed up for the historic and popular campaign of Barack Obama let's encourage them to keep it up and see if we can get even half of that for municipal elections next March.

In light of the passage by voters of Proposition 8, which eliminated the right of same-sex couples to marry in California, the Los Angeles County Clerk has already ordered no further same-sex marriages be performed in LA County.

Landslide victory for Mr. Avis Ridley-Thomas in the race for LA County Supervisor.  State Senator Mark "Don't Call Me Curley" Ridley Thomas bested City Councilmember Bernard Parks by nearly 2-1 in Tuesday's election.  The County's loss is the City's gain; Parks is a reasoned voice on the Council and I think we need him in the City still.

When major print publications like The Christian Science Monitor and US News and World Report are abandoning their hard copy editions and going to online only, it's a step backward for the Daily News to end it's ValleyNews.com program which allowed community reporters to post stories of church meetings, school succeses, community projects and other community oriented news at a super local level.  The Daily News has ended it's relationship with YourHub, the provider that powered the project.

Add one more candidate to the list of seekers for the post of Mayor of Los Angeles.  Zuma Dogg has filed paperwork to run for Mayor and is encouraging you to sign his petition.  He begins his drive this Saturday in Highland Park at Casa Princesa.