Los Angeles Politics Hotsheet for Monday

The Real Republican

Jim Newton profiles "Republican" mayoral candidates Austin Beutner and Rick Caruso.  Last I heard Beutner was registered decline to state and rumor is Caruso has or is re-registering as a Democrat.  Newton fails to mention actual Republican Kevin James, who has the backing of most Republican power players in LA.  He also says that Villaraigosa's victory against "goofy" Walter Moore "doesn't count" even though Moore and several other "goofy" candidates with little money and no name ID held the overfunded and popular incumbent to just 55% of the vote.

Apparently bloggers Joseph Mailander and Phil Jennerjahn have found an interesting way to amuse themselves - they will bet on whether or not Republican Sarah Palin will run for President.  Jennerjahn is convinced the former Alaska Governor will drop her hat into the ring; Mailander is putting his money on that Palin will remain on the book and talk TV circuit that's been so lucrative for her.  Mailander and Jennerjahn tried to get me involved in their reindeer games, holding their funds and being the final arbiter, I have politely declined.

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Mayor Sam's Hotsheet for Wednesday

Excellent piece by Joel Kotkin on "The Decline of Los Angeles."  A mentor of mine told me several years ago that Los Angeles is a city with its best days behind it.  That appears to be true.  Kotkin chronicles how the City has fallen on economic hard times, the middle class and business has left in droves and quality of life is slipping. Kotkin laments" In such a context, Villaraigosa's upcoming coronation seems hard to comprehend. By most accounts, he has been at best a mediocre mayor, with few real accomplishments." Though its tough at the moment to find a scenario where one of the Mayor's challengers pushes him into a run-off or even defeats him, there's still the chance.  Vote for anyone but Antonio and lets go from there. 


Westside White Guy shows his Pulitzer Paperweight winning suburban chops once again when he can't imagine why even Congresswoman Maxine Waters has bailed on supporting Jack Weiss for City Attorney and has endorsed Carmen Trutanich.  Yes Kevin, get past your cocktail party talk and understand that indeed "Anyone but (Jack) Weiss" is critical for the City.

So if it's anyone but Jack who do you vote for? Fortunately you have several choices. One of whom is the good Weiss, NOEL WEISS, whom you can read about here and here.

Mayoral candidate David Hernandez is charging the City's Channel 36 censored the final segment of a Full Disclosure report on the Mayor's gang program.  Hernandez charges that "The broadcast was censored and viewers were subject to a blank screen during the 30 minutes scheduled to air the controversial conclusion.," and then asks " Just what did the Mayor not want you to see?" 



Measure B made the New York Times.  Relatively balanced piece however it doesn't go into why there is such "fierce opposition" to this shady boondoggle.

I'm all for privatizing as much City services as possible but stand for a shady alert.  Mayor Villaraigosa wants to explore an idea similar to one implemented in Chicago (red flag alert) in which the Windy City has sold their parking meter revenue for 75 years to Morgan Stanley.  Watch out folks, there's huge room for abuse here.

Joseph Mailander likes yurts but I think he would rule this one out as an option for the homeless.  CurbedLA reports a Silverlake version of a manse that comes with the home style pioneered by the Mongols that is on the market for nearly $600K.

Monday Hotsheet at 1:02 a.m.

JM, After the Wind; Palm Fronds on Talmadge, 12.30.07


Joseph Mailander a guy in la • elsewhere • email

Actually 3 a.m., but I didn't want to bottlecap the Sammy awards, so I posted down here. Our readers are wise: I'm happy with the awards, btw, more than I thought I'd be, even if I did get drubbed by David Zahniser, which I am pleased to have been. So next year, let's have a best civic photography award, so I can get drubbed by Gary Leonard too.

It's a good list; check it out again.

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Remember about twenty years ago---especially on buildings along Spring and Main where lots of hi-rises had windows you could open---when they used to throw the pages of those desk calendars out of buildings downtown on the last day of the year? Do they still do that? You would find those pages around downtown all through January.

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Someone in the Mayor's office keeps riding me about my on-the-cheap, first-yurt-then-build homeless housing concept, but Santa Barbara is already halfway there with their Safe Parking program. Steve Chawkins reports for the former fishwrap of record. About 250 people are "housed" through the low-maintenence program that costs the City, County, and private funds a scant $105,000. Remember, the next affordable housing bond will aspire to spend about $100,000,000---almost thousand times more to affect the lives of only five times more people.

Of course, with the Santa Barbara program, the developers don't make anything. So City of LA pols aren't interested---though people in Venice are.

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Nearly everything City Council does with ballot measures is fraudulent to some degree, and it has been now for some time. Orlov runs down the list of tax measures City Council has on tap for you this year. After S, Hahn wants a gang program tax, and LaBonge wants a parcel tax for transportation funding. If S is in the name of "modernization", try to imagine the duplicitious names they will come up with for those.

Declaring an emergency status for Measure S so that it only needs 50%+1 vote to pass (rather than the 66% usually warranted by a City tax) after giving City workers a raise was like calling the fire department after deliberately setting your neighbor's couch on fire.

No, it's not wrong to call the fire department, but you should also call the police department, too, because you don't just have a fire on your hands, you also have arson.

Similarly, S should be challeneged in the courts if it passes.

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Tony Castro files a report in the Press-Telegram on the dark side of the Getty, including the family stuff. Yours truly is quoted.

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Relax about your teen online, says a CSUDH prof. Worry instead about Captain Jack...

Christmas Brings More of the Same for the Homeless

What do Mayor Villaraigosa, Dennis Zine, Janice Hahn, Eric Garcetti and Jennifer Love Hewitt have in common? They showed up to get their pictures taken serving the homeless on Christmas. As the old, dead Republican Mayor has said before, one day photo op projects do little to address social problems. The key is joining and lifting up community based organizations and doing development projects all year round.

Mayor Villaraigosa took the occasion of the Christmas Skid Row photo op to announce the receipt of $72 million in Federal funds to address homelessness. Despite the major cash infusion, it will serve the purpose of providing just 200 additional units of housing for the homeless. That comes to about $36o,000 a unit. That won't even make a dent in the tens of thousands of homeless in Los Angeles.

These programs are very well intentioned and most of those who come out to get their picture taken are good people. The problem is the programs are so wasteful and inefficient they do little to address the real need.

You could take the same amount of money - as Joe Mailander has suggested - and build nearly 10,000 yurts while reserving a portion of the fund as a permanent endowment to fund - without any further tax outlays - ongoing maintenance, security and services for the residents.

Mayor Sam's Hotsheet for Friday

Absolutely disgusting. Some dumbasses have vandalized the outside of Council Member Jack Weiss' district office with swastikas and other racist graffiti. Lets hope the police find the clowns who did this.

More after the jump

We broke the story last night; LAist has an excellent interview with Joseph Mailander, following his stepping down as editor of the longtime LA blog, Martini Republic. Though Joseph still co-owns the blog, his absence will create a huge vacuum and like LA Voice without Mack Read, or KABC without Mr. KABC or Kevin James, MR is in dangerous shark-jumping territory. Indeed, we've already delisted MR from our "hot blog" section and replaced it with Mailander's new entry, splice the mainbrace.

Los Angeles City Librarian Fontayne Hughes will show up on Patt Morrison's radio show Friday to discuss the Library's recent unveiling of free wi-fi at all City libraries. Kudos to Hughes, this is a great program.

It doesn't get a lot of attention, but CurbedLA has a good piece on the up and coming berg that is Koreatown.

The union for broadcast technical employees, NABET, has come out with a statement regarding the treatment of broadcast crews by the LAPD during the pro-illegals rally on Tuesday. Indeed, the cops should have been beating up and deporting the illegal alien criminal gang members and trouble makers rather than TV reporters.

Mailander has proposed yurts as good low income, transitional housing for the homeless (as opposed to spending millions on "affordable housing" and Skid Row hotels). Another option as seen over at CurbedLA are low cost homes are cargo containers.