|
|
I.M. Copper commented on A Day At the Angeles Range
Michele commented on DWP rate hike tales of woe
Chris Weinkopf commented on Take a trip with the mayor for only $850
Mariel Garza commented on Trying on My Concrete Shoes
Mariel commented on Keep your hands off my DWP bill!
Wealthy Sportsman commented on Burglar alarm fuss, part II
bob ginn commented on Fun at City Hall *
Mariel commented on A history of police pandering
jonathan dobrer commented on The Undeniable Logic of Government
Today I heard from a highly placed LAUSD official -- who will remain anoymous -- who called today's Daily News editorial about Superintendent David Brewer "amazing," and added, "you nailed it."
This is the editorial, mind you, in which we all but called for the firing of said official's boss.
Someone alert the admiral -- a mutiny appears to be under way.
Yesterday, the DN linked to an NPR story that was billed as a profile of Officer Jennifer Grasso, the first woman to enter the LAPD's SWAT school. Interestingly, the only thing it said about Grasso was that she refused to be interviewed. Some profile.
That may be the only thing the report got right. Top to bottom, the story is riddled with factual errors, blatantly stereo-typed prejudice and gross omissions (for instance, trumpeting an officers $2 million jury verdict, while failing to mention said verdict was overturned on appeal).
Here, then, is the commentary in response that I have prepared for NPR. They've not seen fit to get back to me. I'm shocked.
The Politically Incorrect Truth About LAPD's First Female SWAT Officer:
NPR's recent profile of Los Angeles Police Officer Jennifre Grasso, the first female selectee for the renown LAPD SWAT team, left out numerous key facts and advanced patently false misperceptions and liberal stereo-types.
Let's stipulate now that Jennifer Grasso is an outstanding cop. Those who have worked with her say she's far better than most male officers. SWAT officers I know were disappointed when she failed their stringent 2006 selection.
This doesn't change a simple fact: If Grasso is passes SWAT school, it will only be because she's a woman, and Police Chief Bratton wants a woman on SWAT, capable or not.
NPR failed to mention that Grasso recently committed a violation of weapons' safety so egregious that most present SWAT officers would have been removed from the team for the same. She accidentally fired an MP-5 submachine gun, without even having the weapon in a firing position.
Before now, SWAT officers were expected to arrive with the finest weapons handling traits. Just as diamonds can be cut and polished only to standards their chemical traits permit, so too are weapons skills limited. By choosing only officers with the finest innate traits - those with skills that need to be honed, not learned - SWAT has amassed a remarkable record - killing less than 1% of the extremely dangerous suspects they confront and only one hostage ever - and arguably not even her.
In past years, dozens of male and female candidates have been disqualified for even placing a finger on the trigger at the wrong time. Every professional weapons handling standard starts with "never put a finger on the trigger unless you are ready to fire." Grasso went one better, spraying rounds into the dirt in front of her.
She literally could have killed someone, yet is still in school.
Does anyone really believe no SWAT standards have been lowered, as CPT Jeff Greer asserted?
This is no minor matter to current SWAT cops. Would you want to confront an armed suspect knowing the officer behind you had accidentally fired the same machine gun that is now inches from your back? If you're a hostage, is that officer your first choice of rescuer?
NPR also failed to tell you that the selection procedure that picked Grasso used only five of the 18 standards that were previously used to evaluate candidates. Among the eliminated tests, was a simulated hostage rescue that very closely mirrored the 2005 incident in which SWAT is believed to have accidentally killed a little girl - the Suzie Pena case which supposedly led to this change. It is that same test that former officer Nina Acosta barely passed in the early 1990s before suing the City for discrimination. Contrary NPR's report that she wasn't selected because of her gender, officers who testified in the trial say Acosta hesitated for three or four seconds inside that room while fumbling with her weapon. Most police gun battles are over in half that time.
That is why Acosta's $2 million verdict was thrown out by an appeals court, another fact NPR left out.
NPR also was quick to quote LAPD observer Joe Domanick, a journalist who's never carried a gun, much less served as an LAPD officer. According to him, blacks and Latinos were only admitted to SWAT following a consent decree, and the unit is still largely a bastion of whites.
In fact, this is false. Among the very first SWAT officers were several highly regarded officers of a variety of ethnicities. One black sergeant is regarded by old timers as a key to the team's early growth. A large number of the team was Hispanic. Today, African American officers make up a greater percentage of SWAT than the LAPD as a whole - something that was true before Randal Simmons was murdered in Winnetka earlier this year.
But, to Domanick and NPR (who apparrently didn't bother going to look at SWAT), this is a white male bastion.
The fact is, contrary to NPR's assertions, SWAT is a bastion of excellence of all colors, and diverse in its expertise. Its record proves it rarely uses force, and its ranks include some of the world's best-trained - and most successful - hostage negotiators.
How could NPR get so many facts wrong and omit so many important points? I'd venture to say NPR is far more prejudiced against folks in blue, than SWAT cops are anyone of any color. Or any gender.
The loser in all of this is Grasso. Frankly, lots of folks can make mistakes with a weapon. Officers who have done so in the past have retested the selection process and made the team, without doubts. Grasso will not be so fortunate. Regardless of the selection standards used, she will now always be known as the woman who had the standards changed for her, and who got away with something no man ever would.
Sometimes when you shatter a non-existent glass ceiling, you still get cut be falling shards.
And, remember, the standards have not been lowered.
I like our mayor, Antonio Villaraigosa. We have a very special relationship. I met him only once, but because I was seated with important people he didn't know that I'm not; and so exercising discretion, in at least this part of his life, he grasped my hand firmly in his two strong hands, gazed deeply into my eyes, as if no one else were in the room, and told me how sincerely pleased he was to meet me. Wow! Was he good! Imagine then my sense of bewilderment and betrayal when he never called and never wrote. Sigh. But what a guy. He never sleeps. He is at every banquet, school fair, retirement party and public event in Los Angeles. I'm sure my 8 year-old and 5 year-old grandsons were thrilled by his appearance at their elementary school fair on Saturday. When does he have time to work, to sleep, to think things through?
The great philosophical question before us is this: Are politicians born out of touch with reality and the public or do they become that way? This is variation of the "Nature versus Nurture" debate. What seems indisputable however is that politicians quickly display a degree of separation from our concerns, needs and realities.
We are witnessing our mayor proposing all kinds of increases on fees and fines. It will cost more to park. The fine for the expired meter will naturally also cost more. At the very same time our government is putting us at great economic peril and opening us up to a multi-million dollar fine by not paying the $81 million now due into our pension fund. The cost of this delay will be $15 million in the first year and accrue from there. Smart?
The garbage fees already recently raised will go up again. We recently received notice that a new company was being contracted to do our garbage pick up. Will they be sending three trucks as well? What are the ecological costs of three trucks instead of one doing our pick up? Does the increased pollutants in the air really balance the savings of trashing separation? Is the trash in fact remaining separate or is it being merged at the dump--as some have reported? We deserve to know. The new company will be replacing our black, blue and green trash receptacles. What will this cost? Who will pay? Ah, that we do know already. We will pay.
The libraries will close on Sundays, while other services will also be cut back. Money for police and fire departments will not be cut. However, we should at least ask how much of the increase in police budget will be used to pay for legal costs and civil judgments against the department? Are we paying for more protection or are we paying for a lack of professionalism and effective discipline? As we remember the May Day Melee of last year, we do need to know the true costs of policing and how much of our money goes to the beat cop and how much to cop beatings.
Most egregious and offensive of all the new "revenue enhancement" schemes is the special "congestion pricing" of our present carpool lanes. Since we no longer talk about taxes but revenue enhancements and fees, we are not supposed to notice that more is being extracted from our wallets--often for things we have already paid for.
The carpool lane itself turns out to be a misnomer. Designed to reward the socially acceptable behavior of carpooling, it was co-opted to reward those who could afford to buy a new hybrid. Then, as people actually complied, they started limiting the decals for carpool use by single drivers. Bait. Switch. Deny. Re-Purpose.
Now they are trying to takeover, slowly at first as a test project, the carpool lanes and turn them into revenue enhancers under the guise of "congestion fees."
Now there is no question that there is congestion. Just trying to breath un-conditioned air while driving congests me and creates a hacking cough and high-pitched wheeze. The traffic is also congested. How to handle it? Well, do what they did in London and charge people to enter the city. (Although I think they'd do better to charge people to leave. Many would pay any amount.) This way the rich can drive and the poor can take the train or metro. This way the wealthy will drive in comfort and the poor will waste $4 plus per gallon gasoline idling in the traffic jams. Hmmm. The rich will speed along while we have for the first time in history the "idling poor." This is as nasty a piece of Social-Darwinian social engineering as I have ever seen. You see, in London they have mass transit: trains, metros and several kinds of taxis. In Los Angeles we have, uh, well, not so much rapid transit. We do have freeways however.
Now they are desperately trying to take the free out of freeway. They began by building dedicated toll roads. Now they are trying to confiscate our already existing freeways and hold them hostage for money.
Aside from being elitist and unfairly benefiting the wealthy and punishing the poor, aside from doing nothing to truly solve our congestion problems, this has a still deeper flaw. Look at the gasoline tax you already pay. You and I have already paid for these roads--and we were probably fools for allowing the carpool lane precedent to begin the erosion of our rights.
I know the city and county need money. But we are not idiots. We see the fees and fines and are not happy. They want more money for less service. We can say No. We can ask them if our government really needs the staff and bureaucracy for each Council member and Supervisor? We can demand to know if they can justify being driven in city-owned and county-owned cars? Do the police need one person at a desk (sworn and unsworn) to support one officer in the field? Maybe the answer is Yes. Prove it.
None of these increased fees and fines, cut services and repossessed lanes is for any greater purpose than raising money. They are so much better at raising money than saving it. Maybe if Mayor Villaraigosa would do his own driving and pay for his own gas, he'd come to understand the plight of the growing poor and the shrinking middle class. Maybe. Mr. Mayor, be in touch.
LAPD Chief William Bratton came to the Daily News this afternoon, mostly to talk about how different the Mayday march will be from last year's breakdown, in which several members of the media were hurt. But the real interesting thing, to me, was his thoughts about everyone's favorite scapegoat: Special Order 40.
"I'm sorry, it's here to stay."
Last week the parents of murdered high school star Jamiel Shaw Jr. pleaded with the City Council to change the LAPD policy, which simply requires officers not to initiate action with the purpose of checking someone's immigration status. Councilman Dennis Zine reacted with an ordinance requiring officers to check status in certain cases. Bratton today dismissed the calls for revision or repeal (and Zine's ordinance), noting that Special Order 40 isn't going anywhere. He and his top staff said they already work with ICE agents and do everything they can to deport violent criminals and gangsters. Nevertheless, he said he is developing a clarification for Special Order 40 so that the misinformation will stop.
He also speculated that if SheriffJoe Arpaio in Maricopa County, Ariz, who is rounding up illegal immigrants himself, is already probably putting quite the strain on the federal government's deportation resources.
Today's lead editorial
ONE of the important checks to weed out incompetent doctors, and keep them from injuring or killing their patients, is the prospect of a legitimate malpractice lawsuit.
For that reason, it's telling that the lawyer who filed a lawsuit on behalf of a Valley Village woman against the city of Los Angeles referred to the city's density bonus as "political malpractice."
And why not?
If malpractice lawsuits can help protect the public from harmful medical incompetence, why not a lawsuit that can protect the public from harmful political incompetence?
Sadly, suing City Hall often seems the only way that Angelenos can get their leaders' attention.
This suit, by Angeleno Sandy Hubbard, sprang from a recommendation by none other than L.A. Planning Commission President Jane Ellison Usher, who recommended that someone challenge the policy in court.
It was, to be sure, unusual for a top city official to publicly acknowledge the futility of trying to appeal to elected officials' sense of civic duty. But to her credit, Usher frankly advised residents to sue before this new building rule wrecks neighborhoods.
The so-called "density bonus" that the Los Angeles City Council adopted earlier this year - and which Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa has endorsed in spirit - allows developers to run roughshod over the few city planning restrictions that could protect the public from bad development.
If developers include "affordable housing" in their project - a questionable prospect considering the volatility of the real-estate market at the moment - they are allowed to break rules, such as rules on providing parking, and to construct towering buildings that don't fit into a neighborhood.
This is not about the "smart growth" that the council, the mayor and developers like to talk about. It's about serving the needs of special interests - developers who line campaign coffers - while seeming to serve the needs of unfortunate Angelenos, thus appeasing community and housing advocates.
City officials can encourage affordable housing in Los Angeles without selling out already-stressed neighborhoods and making current residents pay the costs. So far, officials have just chosen not to.
Resorting to the courts is never ideal. But in this case, it seems that it's the only way the city's leaders will do the right thing for their constituents.
The Daily News' Sunday editorial, in full:
It was bad enough that the Los Angeles City Council turned its back on the people of the city and voted in years of higher DWP bills without changing any of the behavior that created the need for rate hikes.
But when city officials dredged up the death of a firefighter in Westchester in late March to justify the fleecing of Angelenos, it actually compounded this crime.
What DWP General Manager H. David Nahai and some council members perhaps don't realize is that by saying the Department of Water and Power needs these higher water and power rates to fix the electrical problems that led to the exploding manhole covers - injuring two Los Angeles firefighters, one fatally - it actually makes city officials bigger criminals than just misspending the public's money.
If Los Angeles' aging infrastructure is killing people, who's to blame? Here's a hint: It's not the manhole's fault.
The culprit is years of misspending utility revenues on non-utility needs, as directed by the city's elected and appointed officials, and that resulted in the smoldering underground cable, which was the reason for the series of events that led up to the firefighter's death. Instead of reinvesting the utilities' revenues that it reaped from ratepayers, as any publicly owned utility ought to, city officials diverted billions of dollars over the years to serve their own needs. Had the money not been lost in annual transfers of millions in water and power revenues to the city's general fund, the aging cables in Westchester might have been replaced years ago.
As well, that money could have been used to make the capital improvements that might have kept the lights on during the blackouts of recent summers.
Instead, that revenue has been siphoned off for years, in the form of those yearly transfers, unnecessary DWP costs like fancy PR campaigns, and the creation of the highest paid department in America.
Put those factors together and it seems as if it ought to equal criminal negligence.
But pilfering the public trust and coffers has become routine in government from City Hall to the White House. By squandering the taxpayers' investment, it means the money to upgrade electrical systems, water systems, critical bridges and who knows what next is deferred.
The council is correct that the DWP's infrastructure needs to be fixed. But what's incorrect about last week's vote to raise water and power rates over the next three years is who ought to pay for it.
This is a crime of utility, for which, once more, the public has to pay.
My column Sunday about my DWP bill in the context of the current debates over proposed DWP rate prompted readers' similar tales of woe over the ever increasing cost of living here in Los Angeles. One reader is a widow trying to live on $15,000 a year:
With the DWP rates and its long list of assorted charges always increasing, Internet service constantly going up, and of course the cost of gasoline, it is getting extremely difficult to keep my head above water. Like you, I am an environmentally conscious person doing all that I can think of to be energy efficient. I am very conscious about recycling and like you I am fully aware of the blue barrels being emptied by the scavengers long before the trucks come along to empty the empty barrels. ... How do we get the attention of those in charge when they can care less about us? It doesn't bother them, they are financially sound with their huge salaries and all the perks they receive. The DWP salaries are and have always been outrageously high. I say reduce those and all government salaries, make people in all levels of government employment far more accountable.
And an earlier post about my DWP bill prompted this comment:
My Woodland Hills home is a one family home. It has about 4000 square feet. After my children grew up and I was single again, I favored staying in the house. However, I simply did not personally need all that space for myself and it was too difficult for me to maintain alone.I then had the truly bright idea of creating lovely guest suites -- virtually apartments -- within the space. There are connecting doors between each suite (because of understandable city and fire laws). But each space has its own entrance.
The DWP sees my house as an apartment building with four units. Therefore, the DWP has quadrupled my trash bill to $112 every two months. Here's the real issue at hand.....
I am effectively paying for 12 trash cans when, in fact, I only have three.
I called DWP about these charges. Once they realized the facts, they said I had to "use it (the 12 cans) or lose it." I then said my property cannot accomodate any more than three cans ... that the number of people who live in the house now has not changed from the original number that represented my family. They then had the gall to say to me that I should have no complaints ... that my rents likely more than cover this increased trash fee. This, of course, is not their business. Fairly billing people is. But, by this point, I just gave up while thinking I can't fight city hall.If my trash fee goes from $112 to $152 I believe I'll actually save money if I simply hire a private trash service. I will simply dismiss ... discharge ... fire the city trash service. I look forward to that day.
Now, that's a lot of money for trash collection. Seems a trip to the dump would be cheaper.
Plus room and airfare.
To travel with a SoCal lobbying entourage from April 15 though 18 on the L.A Chamber of Commerce's "Access Washington DC Tour," all you have to do is register here, pick your lobbying team (aviation, climate change, housing, transit, etc.) and provide your credit card information for the $850 fee. For that modest amount you can work the hall of Capitol Hill alongside Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa and Santa Monica's mayor, whathisface.
Join more than 200 of the region's top business leaders and elected officials for Southern California's largest advocacy trip to Washington, D.C. from April 15-18, 2008. This is an incredible opportunity to meet with members of Congress and Bush Administration officials on the issues important to our communities.Access Washington, D.C. is a partnership of nearly two dozen business advocacy organizations, non-profits, educational institutions and local government leaders. Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa and Santa Monica Mayor Herb Katz are co-leading the 2008 delegation.
Sounds like a real hoot! Surely worth $850 to lobby the mayor, I mean with the mayor in those hallowed halls.
In the process of writing and editing an opinion piece for a major newspaper, a lot of things can end up snipped out by an enthusiastic editor. It is part of the process, and, in my experience, is not reflective of bias or political sensitivity. Unfortunately, some of those snips can snag substantive morsels of information.
This is one of those.
Shortly after the death of Suzie Pena, the LAPD SWAT team held a regular range practice at Angeles Range, in the Foothill Division. The team was stunned at having lost their first hostage in 35 years, disturbed at the possibility it might have been one of their own errant rounds tha killed her. Multiplying the tension, for the first time in their history, the potential of a serious inquiry into the actions and practices this world-class outfit loomed in the background.
That's when Assistant Chief Sharon Papa showed up. Papa, the highest ranking woman in the LAPD, is in large part an LAPD outsider. She was the chief of the old Metropolitan Transit Authority Police when it was absorbed by LAPD. She joined as a Commander -- a senior manager. For better or worse, she never pushed an "A Car" around an LAPD Division. Her experience with the kinds of calls and problems faced uniquely by LAPD officers is (and remains) limited.
So, having her around the premiere LAPD unit already caused the SWAT officers a bit of discomfort, especially given the motivation for her visit: She was going to discuss the Pena inquiry.
But it was the first words out of her mouth that none of the officers who were present will ever forget, numerous officers who were present have told me. Her words were not "thanks for having me." She didn't say "how are you guys holding up? I know its been a rough few days." She didn't even try to set a tone of cooperation.
Instead, this was her first comment:
"So, where are all the women? Oh, THAT's RIGHT, there are no women in SWAT."
Suzie Pena had barely been buried, and Sharon Papa was primarily focused on politcal correctness.
And thus the stage was set. Less than a month later, Papa was appointed to lead the Pena inquiry, and its conclusions were forgone. SWAT needs a woman. Dead hostages be damned.
Notably, two weeks ago, Papa, the senior officials of the LAPD's administration and personnel management activities, wrote an email to the wife of a SWAT officer, denying any knowledge of changes made to the SWAT selection test that would make it more accessible to women. Does anyone really believe, after a comment like this, that she really lost all interest in having a woman on SWAT?
Me either.
It's been a while since I last posted here on Friendly Fire. I've been busy comforting the afflicted and afflicting the comfortable in the San Gabriel Valley, and then when a little birdy dropped a package in my hands, the fit really hit the shan... as the saying goes.
However, if I read the tea leaves correctly, this could potentially be my last post. Ever. Anywhere.
The Los Angeles Chief of Police wants me silenced.
The package the birdy gave me contained the highly secret and remarkably inane report of the LAPD SWAT Board of Inquiry. Supposedly appointed to look into the Suzie Pena incident from 2005by Police Chief William J. Bratton, the board instead looked at everything but (it didn't even interview the Pena officers) and then made some dramatic allegations and recommendations that fly in the face of a remarkably successul organization. Actually, the board didn't really look at anything - SWAT cops tell me they rarely if ever saw the board, thus the board rarely saw SWAT, too. Many of its statements are demonstrably false and absent any factual basis.
Anyway, this package led to my authoring an OpEd for the other paper in town, an that led to a bunch of other stories, a mini-media tour of local talk radio stations and a grievance filed by the Police Protective League.
Apparrently, Chief Bratton is not amused.
In a stunning -- shocking -- statement, Bratton drew parallels to himself and the Corleone family from the movie "The Godfather." He vowed to silence his critics and noted: "And at the end of the movie, all debts are settled in a very bloody way."
Really? Is Bill Bratton going to silence me in a very bloody way?
Amazingly, the Los Angeles political and media establishment have been silent. There seems to be no discomfort whatsoever that the senior law enforcement official in this city has made reference to organized crime as his method for management.
However, extortion, threats and intimidation are clearly part of Bratton's LAPD calculus. Numerous SWAT officers have told me in recent days of mass punishment and statements to officers to the effect of "if you talk to the press, you're out of SWAT." At least one officer has been threatened with sanctions for things his wife said. So, Bratton disregards the First Ammendment, too.
Assistant Chief Sharon Papa pretty blatantly misled the wife of one SWAT officer. Some might say she lied. I won't - I don't wanna sleep with da fishes.
Despite all this, the local media is silent and our Mayor, who supposedly was all enthusiastic about the Bill of Rights when he ran the local chapter of the ACLU now seems more enthusiastic about the Bill who is his mafia don/Police Chief.
This is Los Angeles, 2008. Not the 1948 of LA Confidential. Not New York of the 1970s. Not Tiajuana. LOS ANGELES!!!!!
Yet our media seem uniformly unconcerned by mafia-style (literally) threats and intimidation. The "civil rights activists" are silent. Of course, they would be aghast if a beat cop was caught on tape comparing himself to a gang enforcer in trying to scare the bajeezus out of a thug in Jordan Downs. Imagine John Mack having nothing to say about that. Imagine the Times' consternation if Daryl Gates made an accurate, offhand remark about the immigration status of a cop killer (oh, wait, they did get upset, no need to imagine). Yet, when its from Bratton - nothing.
The silence in deafening.
If you don't hear from me for a while, just ask Bratton where he gave me my concrete shoes.
The man who never rests is taking a day off -- without pay!
And it's easy to see why. When Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa proposed that Los Angeles city workers take voluntary furloughs (unpaid days off) to help save their jobs, he envisioned the city reaping $20 million worth of savings. But in the end, the plan only brought in a measly $95,000 -- probably because city workers, like the rest of us, like getting a paycheck.
Meanwhile, despite his lofty exhortations, Villaraigosa was notably not among the few self-sacrificial workers to forgo a few days' wages. So now the mayor has decided to lead by example by making today his day off. But being Antonio, he can't really just take a breather:
Regardless of the furlough, the mayor plans to attend five public events today.In the morning, he will join Los Angeles City Councilman Ed Reyes, county Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky and members of Congress for a helicopter tour of the Los Angeles River.
Then, the mayor will attend the 41st annual Firefighter of the Year Luncheon to honor LAFD Capt. Stephen Norris. Following that event, the mayor will deliver the keynote address at the Southern California Association of Governments' Regional Transit Summit.
In the afternoon, Villaraigosa will head to Wilmington to discuss a landmark vote by the Los Angeles Harbor Commission. To end his day, Villaraigosa will attend the Korean American Chamber of Commerce's 31st annual Gala.
What a guy, he's working for nothing!
But rather than short-change himself, Villaraigosa ought to embrace more straightforward accounting: He should go ahead and charge the city for today's work -- but pay back his wages from all the weeks he spent traveling around the country stumping for Hillary Clinton.
It's high enough.
For years, my bi-monthly DWP bill was usually somewhere between $150 - $175 for water, sewer, trash and electricity for my small two-bedroom house with many water- and electricity-saving devices. A couple months ago the combined whammy of increased trash fees ($11 a month to $26 a month) and higher water rates pushed it up to as much as $250 per billing period. Now, the city is thinking about raising the trash fee again?
Yes -- if you can believe it. According to a Times story today ( they occasionally get a City Hall story in the paper before us, but believe me we will cover much heavier than the Times over the course of thing), city officials are talking about raising the trash fee again, to $38 a month. Combined with the 6 percent hike in water rates again and 9 percent in power in the near future, I can see my bi-monthly bill easily surpassing $300 -- a 100 percent increase from just last summer -- despite the fact that I'm one person in a small house and I don't have a lot of electronics and don't take frequent long showers. I even have low-flow toilets, front-loading washer, no lawn a very low water landscaping and compact florescent bulbs in all my fixtures.
If my bill goes up to $300, what must other people be experiencing?
The natives are getting restless in Los Angeles City Hall, what with Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa uttering the l-word -- layoffs. And folks aren't happy. Some internal e-mails that city workers are passing among themselves have been forwarded our way, and they reflect a great deal of frustration with both the political and the bureaucratic leadership.
First there's this:
Let us all contact the Daily News newspaper and express our opinion.....didn't he take his entire staff to China last year....and didn't he approve a raise for DWP who already makes more us and also to the Fire and Police depts. If he is going to lay off people, he should start at the top because those people make the most money and usually do less work....I know many management analysts who just pass their work down to the clerical; I'm sure you all know what I mean!!
And then this:
Augh!!!! Don't get me started on lazy MAs "delegating." I've known some (but not all) that have proven to be the laziest bunch of employees in the City! But, I'd start the layoffs much higher up the chain of command. Layoff a dozen of those six-figure salaried employees, and the deficit will be resolved!Let's hear more from city employees about how they think money can be saved in L.A. government ...
Lilia Esther Garcia was appointed to the East Area Planning Commission today. The board is responsible for planning decisions in Silver Lake, Echo Park, Boyle Heights and northeast Los Angeles.
The appointment means nothing to many until you realize she's the the sister of Monica Garcia, the rather unremarkable president of the LAUSD board of education and one of Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa's special hand-picked board members. She was also the former aide to Councilman Jose Huizar when he was the president of the LAUSD school board, who was the anointed replacement when Villaraigosa left the 14th council district for the mayor job. It's just like a big happy family here in Los Angeles politics.
Remember all the fun surrounding false burglar alarms a few years ago? It seems that's in store for false fire alarm calls as well. We editorialized about it today in "Fire alarms redux."
The Los Angeles Fire Department wastes $9 million a year answering 30,000 bogus calls. Why not compel those responsible for this waste to pick up the cost?The problem comes in the execution. Just ask the Los Angeles Police Department.
Four years ago, the city wrestled with the same problem as it pertains to false burglar alarms. Then, as now, authorities complained that too many false alarms were draining resources away from real emergencies. Then as now, they proposed steep fines to help mitigate the problem.
And then as now, the idea made sense - in theory.
After a long, bitter and drawn-out battle among city leaders, homeowners and private security firms, the city agreed to allow homeowners and businesses two false alarms - after which alarms from that address would not be answered without human confirmation that an actual break-in was taking place.
And so many people think local government is dull! Not in L.A. I'm here at Los Angeles City Hall this morning for my weekly immersion into the zany antics of the City Council and its groupies. And none of the groupies are as loud, as obnoxious and as over-the-top as Council gadflies and now bloggers Matt Dowd and Zuma Dogg, he of the ear-splitting rap poetry and weird musical stylings. * I take it back: Zuma Dogg isn't here today. Just Dowd, who invoked his name. But he's carrying the weight for both.
In truth, these two would be insufferable were it not for relentless and creatively silly attacks on the free speech limits the council has had to adopt -- because of them. Today, both are driving the council members nuts with their repeated reference to their support for and concern about the abuse to "Mike Hunt" during Brown act-required public comment. If you don't get it, say the name out loud a few times until you do. It's seriously juvenile, but highly amusing.
These dudes are odd and clearly not part of the regular working world. But they've found a mission in life: to annoy local government officials. It's quite possible they are doing the people of Los Angels a great service. Or maybe it's just an elaborate piece of performance art.
You can watch yourself once the meeting is over (it's in closed session at the moment). Find today's council meeting online at the city page.
Some Los Angeles city officials are proposing the largest transfer of public land to private homeowners in the history of the city. But there's a catch, as outlined by the story in the LA Times today. See, the city wants to give homeowners the sidewalks (with an easement, of course) that border their property.
That way, they are no longer responsible for paying to fix them. I suspect the liability for trip-and-fall claims then reverts over the homeowner's insurance. Double bonus for the city! Sneaky, sneaky, huh?
Faced with more than 4,000 miles of broken sidewalks and scarce money to make repairs, Los Angeles officials are weighing a proposal to put responsibility for making the fixes squarely on homeowners.Under the proposal, homeowners would be forced to replace the damaged pavement -- or pay the city a fee -- when they sell their property, before the close of escrow.
The City Council's Public Works Committee got its first look Wednesday at the "point of sale" plan, which could cost the average homeowner as much as $15 for each square foot of sidewalk, and dramatically shift the burden for such repairs from city government to the private sector.
If the city give me the sidewalk in front of my house, the first thing I'm going to is put up tollbooths. If LAUSD can charge the public to use public facilities to fund their upkeep, why can't I? I intend to charge $5 for walking through the lovely strip between my fence and the greenery between it and the curb (what do you call that strip, anyhow?), which I'm not sure if I own, but is my responsibility to keep up.
Sam Zell taking on the DWP breast-feeding issue?
Tim Rutten at the LA Times has a fun column today smacking Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa's pandering to cops during SWAT Officer Randal Simmons's funeral -- and denigrating the media in the process. I agree with his assessment, but have to point out that Los Angeles pols have a history of pandering to the police and, in particular, the police union.
Just one recent example: The mini-controversy over the unpopular financial disclosure requirement for gang and drug cops as one of the final pieces of compliance with the consent decree. (That was the court order that the city signed back in the 1990s after the Rampart scandal, agreeing to do certain things in order to avoid having the department taken over by the feds.) Chief Bratton, the Police Commission and most city officials realized this was a non-negotiable requirement. Not ideal, but that was the nature of the consent decree, right?
Still, the Los Angeles Police Protective League started agitating against the disclosure rule, threatening that cops would quit or leave people who count on cop support in their campaign . As the union for the cops, it's the PPL's role to fight against policies they perceive are bad for members. Wouldn't be much of a union if they weren't fighting for the betterment of cophood. But why would LA Councilman Jack Weiss carry their water? Or Sheriff Baca? DA Steve Cooley?
And they did. Weiss initiated an attempt to have the City Council overturn the Police Commission's approval of the disclosure rules. Cooley and Baca supported the effort. Ultimately it couldn't get support from the council members, in which sanity rules. Surely they figured this was about Weiss looking to improve his standing with the PPL as he launches a run for City Attorney. And Cooley and Baca always need strong support of police for their future elections.
Don't doubt the power of a police endorsement. Just this week, Mark Ridley-Thomas has been crowing about his PPL endorsement for the county supervisor race over former LAPD Chief and current Councilman Bernard Parks, who was ousted from his post at LAPD in large part due to the PPL.
So, yeah, the mayor's pandering the other day may have been a low point of his mayoralty, but he's hardly the first or the last one to embarrass himself that way.
I give up. I have to confess to my conservative friends that they were right; I was wrong, and I have seen the light. Government is not the answer. It is the problem and capable of such remarkable stupidity that were I to pitch the following true scenario to Comedy Central, they’d laugh me out of the writers’ room.
We will all agree, left and right, liberal and conservative, that we have a health care problem. All of us local folks know that King Drew Hospital was a disaster with people stacked up in the hallways, lying on the floors and dying in the parking lot. Part of the reason was almost certainly the culture of the hospital, but some of the pain, suffering and death was caused by the amount of traffic. There were just too many people to be served efficiently or even decently.
Many poor people, often without private health care providers or insurance, used the hospital and its ER for everyday health care. This made the problem of triage, of serving the most critical folks in order of need, especially challenging. The hospital was failing.
So what was our local government’s answer to overcrowding and having people waiting for five hours to see a doctor? Well, you know the answer. It was to close the ER. A brilliant strategy. To paraphrase the famous mantra from Field of Dreams, “If you close it, they won’t come.” It follows logically as day the night that if they don’t come, then no lines. Therefore, if no lines, then no one dies in a closed waiting room.
This has been so successful with King Drew that their mortality rate has fallen to, well, zero. Buoyed by their success, the Feds are back into it again. They have just served notice to UCLA Harbor that their wait times are also unacceptably long and are threatening (Yes, you guessed right. Believe it or not!) to pull their accreditation and close them up, just like King Drew.
The logic is impeccable. The answer to overcrowding and long wait times is to close the hospitals. This also cuts down on mal practice and medical error. After all, if you don’t give them any treatment, they won’t get any mal treatment. If you don’t see them, they won’t be misdiagnosed. If they are not mistreated or misdiagnosed they won’t sue. We are saving lives and money all at the same time. We could end our medical care crisis in a minute if we just eliminated doctors and hospitals and didn’t see sick people.
Who comes up with this cruel, stupidly conceived and ill-considered absurdity? The answer, I fear, is government both local and federal. Not willing to leave bad enough alone, yesterday our local geniuses issued a plan to close our public health clinics. They hope that by closing publically run clinics they can get the non-profit private medical providers to step in. They believe the private sector will be happy to do it cheaper. They can hope. The private sector is already not thrilled with how Medicare, Medical and other government agencies pay. I’m sure they’ll be eager to assume a larger part.
However, what is certain is that by closing the clinics they will drive more poor and underserved to the ERs for ordinary health care. This will increase the wait times to see doctors, increase the financial losses of the ERs, drive more of the private providers out and increase the number of poor who die in waiting rooms, on floors and in parking lots. It’s brilliant. It is our government at work.
My problem in swearing off government being the answer is that if public agencies can’t help and the private sector won’t, I guess the poor will just have to go somewhere out of sight and die.
The first time I set eyes on Los Angeles Police Department Officer Randy Simmons, he was lifting a 200-pound man off the ground. In an enthusiastic bear hug.
Simmons, a large, gregarious rock of a man was warmly embracing a long-time friend, and fellow LAPD SWAT officer, who had graciously invited me to take a peek inside their fraternity, at the annual SWAT Dinner.
That was barely 10 days ago. No one in that room at the Police Academy, no matter how tactically cynical, could anticipate that less than two weeks later, Simmons would be the first man from the Metropolitan Division’s “D Platoon,” as SWAT is officially known, to die in a gun fight.
Simmons, with more than 20 years on the team, was hardly the picture of a SWAT cop the media would have you believe. You certainly would not think him to be one of the Neanderthal brutes that LAPD brass considers them. While he looked every part the former pro-football player he was – a rock-solid athletic physique that, though nearly two-decades my senior, put mine to shame – he was warm, tender even, to those around him.
As he and my host spoke, I looked around the room and noticed 20-feet away a graying man of Asian descent at a table of mostly Hispanic officers. “Wow,” I thought to myself. “I wish I could have brought the LA Times Editorial Board down here. Let them see the brutal, racist, lily-white LAPD that they so often blast. Let them see a black cop hugging a white cop like long lost brothers.”
That Asian cop, Jim Veenstra, now lies in the same hospital where Randy Simmons succumbed, a bullet having felled him in the same fusillade.
On the 14th anniversary of the Northridge earthquake, Hillary Clinton brought her campaign to Cal State Northridge this afternoon. Accompanied by her new BFF Antonio Villaraigosa, she blew into Northridge and spent more than an hour talking with students and other assorted supporters. My favorite was the Iraqi immigrant who got more emotional than the Hill herself in the now-infamous "crying" event, and said he was her guy, then jumped up and kissed the mayor and then Hillary.
And for fun, some homemade endorsement signs spotted among the large overflow crowd outside in the hands of two young men:
"I'll be your Lewinsky'
"Iron my constitution"
Surely no one other than the loved ones of Shirley Lee Williams,72, is more upset how her body was overlooked in a crashed car in Tarzana on Saturday than the emergency responders who missed finding her crumbled form under the passenger-side airbag. When family members discovered she was missing, authorities checked the car that had been towed to a yard where they found her body.
It's a horrifying story, made only less so by coroner's statement that she probably died minutes after the crash. And many people will be expecting the authorities to do something so that this never happens again. But before people go hogwild condemning the police or EMTs or coming up with laws requiring that another form be filled out for each accident, we ought to consider that sometimes mistakes are just that. In my early days as a reporter, I've been to too many accident scenes to count. And the men and women who respond do everything they can to help in chaotic, gruesome and often dangerous situations. This was a freak accident that is getting so much attention precisely because it is so freakish and rare.
Indeed, the most suspicious thing is why Williams' son, the driver who crashed the car into the side of a building, didn't tell authorities his elderly mother was in the car. You'd think he might have been concerned enough to ask if she was alright.
But be sure that from now on, rescuers are going to be looking under every airbag for possible victims. Maybe even in trunks, under seats, in glove boxes, cargo holds...
To understand how incredibly separated from reality the politically driven Los Angeles Board of Police Commissioners is, one look no further than their latest review of an officer-involved shooting.
Distributed yesterday on the LAPD web site, this report, regards the January 22, 2007 shooting of Officer Andy Taylor.
The long-story short of this event is that Officer Taylor was shot four times at point-blank range by a suspect who was handcuffed and already searched. Taylor barely survived, saved literally by his badge, which deflected a round suspect Mathew Powell fired into his chest.
The report is bizzarre on its face, even to those of us fully familiar with the stilted "Officer A, Subject 1" language that is a by-product of certain police officer protection laws. But, for a real trip down the LAPD Rabbit Hole, flip over to page 11 and read this gem of antiseptic, ivory tower analysis (Officer C is Taylor, Suspect 3 is Powell):
Following the removal of Subject 3 from the apartment, Officer C guarded Subject 3 in the hallway. Officer C sat Subject 3 up into a seated position, with Subject 3’s back against the north hallway wall, opposite the doorway to the apartment. Officer C then observed Subject 3 raising his right knee and begin to rise up from the ground by pushing up with his right leg. Officer C placed his hands on Subject 3’s upper torso in an attempt to push him back to a seated position. Simultaneously, Subject 3 rotated his body in a counterclockwise direction, bringing his hands to his right side while holding a handgun. Subject 3 then fired two rounds at Officer C, knocking him rearward. Officer C regained his
footing, crouched down and grabbed Subject 3’s wrists with both hands. Unable to gain control of Subject 3’s handgun, the struggle continued westbound down the hallway. As Subject 3 raised himself off the floor, Officer C tackled him to the ground in a prone position with Officer C landing on top of him. Subject 3 canted his body onto his left side, extended his arms to the right side of his body, attempting to point the handgun at Officer C. Officer C attempted to force Subject 3’s torso onto the floor with his bodyweight while fighting for control of the handgun.
The BOPC found Officer C’s non-lethal use of force to be in policy.
That's right, the BOPC devoted all of that space to finding Taylor acted appropriately in tackling a man who was in the process of shooting him. It's a good thing the BOPC didn't consider the possibility that Taylor spoke to the scum ball in a disrespectful manner after being capped four times. They might still be writing for another month if that were under review.
There's your consent decree at work, Angelenos. A cop gets shot four times and hours of effort go into analyzing if the officer was "in-policy" in tackling him. Glad to know we have that much trust in the LAPD hiring process.
The rest of the report, however, is revealing in other respects.
At the end of the incident narrative sit a series of facts that do not appear in most (if any) other force incident reviews. These include statements that Powell's hands were tested for gunshot residue, his gun was tested for finger prints and hisDNA was also found on the gun. Also included were details about the actions of fire fighters and paramedics ho responded to the scene.
What was this all about? Well, if you read the Times Homicide Blog you will find a lengthy discussion i the comments in which Powell's famly asserts he was wrongly killed for a variety of vacuous reasons. Normally, this would be of no concern to logical folks.
Unfortunately, the BOPC is neither normal, nor logical. (Remember, this is the same body whose newest member declared "diveristy" to be the department's greatest challenge the day a cop was nearly killed - quite possibly because of said body's most controversial policy).
Nope, Commissioner John Mack, who never met a cop he actually liked, took up the cause of the wanna-be cop-killer Mathew Powell. He demanded updates on this particular case outside of the normal reporting cycle.
It's obvious, I suppose. Andy Taylor OBVIOUSLY shot himself four times with a random gun, just to make the killing of a random suspect look good. I mean, nobody actually kills cops. That's just an excuse to cover up murder and oppression of well intended thieves and drug dealers. Isn't that right, Mr. Mack.
Are you paying attention, Mr. Mayor?