LA City Council - Next In Line For Investigation?

They're amongst the highest paid city government officials in the nation, the 15 Los Angeles City Council "members" who must be very nervous about what's going on in terms of investigations into the high salaries paid to elected city officials in the City of Bell and other LA County cities.

Today a new voice was added to the many who now question whether councilmen are worth the high salaries they pay themselves. Former Assistant US Attorney Adam Schiff (Rep. D-Pasadena) "called on federal prosecutors to examine political corruption in Los Angeles County" according to the Pasadena News Star.

Schiff's call to arms is intriguing as he wants the US Attorney to conduct the investigation, not LA County District Attorney Steve Cooley, who made international headlines by busting "corruption on steroids" in the City of Bell, as well as prosecuting Los Angeles City Council "member" Richard Alarcon for living outside of his council district.

Perhaps Schiff felt it was incongruous for Cooley to pursue an investigation into the LA City Council's lack of action in the face of very damning evidence against Alarcon? Many are wondering why Alarcon should continue to receive in excess of $170,000 a year while facing charges that appear to be incontestable. Yet the City Council has steadfastly refused to consider suspending Alarcon's "CEO-like" salary while he struggles to find some excuse for not residing in his council district to such an extent that a homeless person was able to move in.

But it is not only Alarcon's pay that Schiff might be concerned about. All 15 Los Angeles council "members" receive over $170,000 a year, but many nevertheless consistently fail to show up for scheduled council meetings. Schiff may be on to something here as there certainly seems to be more than a degree of similarity between the charges in the Bell City case where councilmen received high salaries but rarely showed up for work, and the tardy attitudes of the Los Angeles City 15.

Los Angeles City Attorney Carmen Trutanich is precluded from investigating and/or prosecuting his clients for taking high salaries and not showing up for work, and perhaps Los Angeles District Attorney Steve Cooley already has enough on his plate. Maybe it's time for the US Attorney to do something to justify his salary and clamp down on the Los Angeles City Council - somebody has to.

Zine Tells Mayor to Stick It Where The Sun Don't Shine

Can't do better than link to Los Angeles Dragnet who called Dennis Zine "The People's Hero" for having the guts to say "No" to Mayor Villaraigosa's shameful attempt to solve his fiscal irresponsibility by making the cash-rich DWP raise our rates.

LA Dragnet also had this great pic of Dennis Zine which we hope they don't mind us also using here.  Zine has been the only City Councilman to consistently stand by City Attorney Carmen 'Nuch' Trutanich, and as they say, perhaps a little of the City Attorney's "Do the right thing" mantra is finally making sense to some of the other elected officials in our City.

Zine's consistent stance against the Mayor marks a first for Los Angeles, and let' s hope Zine's example inspires the rest of the Council to marginalize and ignore the Mayor for the remainder of his term, and get to grips with the financial ruin Villariagosa has brought on our City.

Villaraigosa's 'Briefing Paper' Fails To Impress

As the LA Times reported, Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa's threat that the City of Los Angeles will go bankrupt if the City Council fails to approve his DWP rate hike, failed to impress.

Thanks to an anonymous source, City Hall Insider can reveal the 'Briefing Paper' that was sent to the City Council to try to deter them from standing in the way of the Mayor's rate hike.

Seriously, what is interesting about Villaraigosa tying the DWP rate hike to the City's impending bankruptcy is that it totally validates the Measure B opponents who were, just, able to stop the Mayor and the IBEW from raising a ton of our money for nice, 'Green,' solar power. 

It was the Solar 8 who exposed the Measure B lie, that the money would not be spent on installing solar panels by inexpert DWP (IBEW) workers, but would just be sucked into paying off the City's general fund deficit at our expense.

The latest lie from the Mayor of Failure proves the point. The DWP rate hike was supposed to be yet another 'Green' thing, yet the merest notion that the City Council might stop it, and the Mayor is tying the rate hike to the City's impending bankruptcy.

To add to the lunacy of the arrogant and illogical rate hike, the Mayor of Failure managed to pull off a major political gaffe - Villaraigosa managed to drag the former Vice President of Failure into the argument. Yes, non other than Al Gore weighed in on the Mayor's rate hike. Obviously Gore was unaware of the way that Villaraigosa planned to raid the 'Green' rate hike money and stuff it straight into the City's general fund to stave off bankruptcy. I say 'obviously' because I'll give Gore the benefit of the doubt, and let's face it, Gore has never been one for serious research anyway.

Villaraigosa, the 4 time Bar Exam looser, hasn't realized that the magic of "Green" has worn off, and we're not buying it any more. 

Message to City Hall - Forget Parcel Tax, We Don't Trust You!

At yesterday's marathon Budget & Finance session Councilmember Bill Rosendahl proposed the idea of a parcel tax to bail the City out of the mess the Mayor and the Council have gotten into. According to Rosendahl, the tax would only last as long as necessary to cure the City's financial woes.

If this were any other city it would not be a bad idea. The problem for Los Angeles is that a parcel tax, in fact any tax, requires a 2/3 majority of voters to vote for the tax. In voting for the tax, voters would implicitly state that they trust their elected leaders to apply the tax fairly and only for as long as necessary.

Hell will freeze over before the residents of Los Angeles trust their elected leaders with a tax designed to cover up their irresponsible spending.

Los Angelenos have not forgotten at least two prior instances of 'taxes' where the City Council cheated, yes cheated, the residents.

First, of course, is the trash tax that was designed to buy us 1,000 cops. That tax had barely passed before reality came home and we found that City Hall's promise was hollow. The trash tax just gave the Council more General Fund money to spend on boondoggles like Mexican Book Fairs, or the Mayor's latest scam, $340,000 for bicycle riding lessons.

Second, there was the Phony Phone Tax, the one that promised to reduce phone taxes from 10% to 9.5%, when the original phone tax was illegally being collected 18 months after the tax had expired. In essence, we voted for a new tax of 9.5% instead of no tax at all, and arguably a refund.

Bill Rosendahl one hell of a nice guy, but Bill, you must be smoking too much of that 'medical' marijuana that you advocate if you seriously think 2/3 of voters will agree to trust you and your colleagues with more of our money.

While the Council claims it's in dire need of more money to avoid layoffs and cuts in basic services, the LA Times just reported that Mayor and the Council is sitting on a secret slush fund of $26.5M plus a further $10M (that's $36.5M) for 'special projects.' How come that money isn't being used to save the precious 1,000 jobs that the CAO says have to go?

Face it. It's over. Call the Bankruptcy attorneys and let's start to really sort your mess out. We don't trust you.

Ron Kaye Says It Like It Is - City's Budget in the Hands of Incompetents

Thank you, Ron Kaye, for saying in two minutes, everything that the City Council's Budget and Finance Committee needed to hear - the anger of the residents of Los Angeles at their incompetence and indecision.



Here's a transcript of what you said:


"Thank you for this, and thank you for what you have done, which I think is, fulfilled and impossible dream of mine to ever unite the city. You have brought labor together with the neighborhood activists, you've brought the people with disabilities  and the people who are caring for them, soccer moms and every constituency of this city to the table.


They are all angry. Angry at what I think is really the subtext of the CAO's reports on both parking and the budget, which is a failure of leadership and a failure of management. The proposition that you can possibly fix this city by yourself after years of failure is ridiculous. You need the people, you need all the constituents brought to the table. You need our support, and you have lost the confidence of the people. And that's really the crisis that we're talking about. It's not financial, you can't create jobs in a city that nobody believes in. You can buy jobs, which is what you've been doing, and what is proposed by taking money from the proprietary departments.


These people are just the tip of an iceberg of hundreds of thousands of people who love this city, who want to see it turn around and become a city that respects every element of this city, every type of person, and brings them to the table.


We can't all have everything that we want, but we can sit down at the table and figure out how we really fix this. I have proposed that, if we really got serious, labor might take a step back for two or three years, the public might even agree to a tightly written tax for two or three years just to bail us out of this. You're afraid to tax them because you know that you don't have their trust or faith. You have perpetuated a fiefdom system despite Charter Reform. This is your opportunity to be real leaders and to really save this city, and God willing, you will and the people come together. 


Thank you very much."


I'm also reproducing a comment on your blog this morning, that says what you left unsaid:

"I've never heard so much common sense, so succinctly put, in such little time. Your words are the words of a leader, Ron, and they scare the living daylights out of that bunch of lilly livered, knuckle dragging, hand wringing, indecisive, incompetent, imbecilic, morally and ethically corrupt, unrepresentative, conniving, duplicitous, sanctimonious, self-serving stuffed shirts who have never, ever, held a real job their entire miserable lives. 


You were preaching to a group who have never had to balance a personal household budget, never had to worry about where the next paycheck comes from, or ever, ever, have to make a hard decision. For them there's always a political safe harbor, either as an elected official, or an appointed lackey where they do the devil's work. They bunny-hop between the city and Sacramento, leaving behind them the consequences of their disastrous decisions and move on to con other voters into believing their glossy mailers and special interest paid for baloney."


Says it all, doesn't it?

Alarcon Says "It's All A Mistake"

Responding to reports that investigators from the Los Angeles District Attorney's Office had searched his house in Panorama City and his wife's house in Sun Valley, Los Angeles City Councilman, Richard Alarcon, made the classic mistake of those accused with criminal conduct; he gave a statement that makes the case against him stronger.

Alarcon is under investigation for voter fraud; being registered to vote at a house in Panorama City, which is in his council district (7), but actually living a house in Sun Valley which is in council district 2.

According to a report in the LA Times, Alarcon admitted living in his wife's house in Sun Valley, but explained his residence there was due to a break in at the Panorama City house.

Alarcon reportedly told the LA Times that 'in late October a mentally ill man broke into his house, changed the locks on at least three doors and destroyed his possessions, including many of his clothes. “We haven’t been there since then, that’s for sure,” he said.' In other words, the mental guy that broke in was a squatter.

The question that the jury will doubtless be faced with, is that if Alarcon was actually living in the Panaorama City house, how could a mentally ill man break in and establish a residence there? Where was Alarcon when that happened?

The LA Times had also reported that;
'Three neighbors, an employee at the school next door and a man who has been living in a motor home next to Alarcon's house said they had not seen anyone living in the home recently.

Steve Folden, who lives across the street and said he is the neighborhood watch block captain, said he had noticed no one living in the house for at least three years. Occasionally, he said, he sees workers mowing the lawn. He said he had seen Alarcon at the home "once in a blue moon" until this week.

"It's been vacant for a long time," Folden said.'

No doubt the DA will have searched both houses to get additional evidence to prove that Alarcon's true domicile, the place he actually lives, is not in his council district. That evidence will be bolstered by Alarcon's statement which proves that he wasn't living there when the mentally ill squatter moved in.

Further evidence that the Sun Valley house was Alarcon's domicile comes from a strange request Alarcon made. According to the LA Times, in 2007, Alarcon tried to get the boundary lines of his council district changed so that the Sun Valley house could be included in his council district.

Another fact that the LA Times uncovered is that Alarcon's wife, who apparently owns both houses, wanted to re-develop and sun-divide the Panorama City house into 'town homes.' Some might say that the Panorama City house was purely an investment property, conveniently within CD7, and never a true residence occupied by anyone.

One thing is for sure, Alarcon's got a lot of trouble on his hands, and his statements might satisfy his partisan voters, but may not impress a jury.

It is unfortunate for Alarcon that Los Angeles District Attorney, Steve Cooley, whose Public Integrity Division is investigating Alarcon, is not the kind of guy to make deals where political corruption is concerned. Equally troubling for Alarcon, is that his friend City Attorney Carmen Trutanich cannot defend him as ethical rules prevent the City Attorney from becoming involved in the case.

Alarcon's woes continue as famed criminal defense attorney Johnnie Cochran has been dead for 5 years, and it looks like Alarcon will have to hire a defense attorney with a comparable record and reputation. That costs a lot of money. Perhaps he'll have to sell the Panorama City house to pay his legal bills. It's not like he needs to live there, so it seems.