Antonovich: 'L.A. is the black hole' - when it comes to money

L.A. County Supervisor Mike Antonovich thinks the city of Los Angeles is much like the space phenomenon that traps everything, even light. At least when it comes to money, according to the latest newsletter from Valley Vote.

"The city of L.A. is the black hole," Antonovich said at the April 21 Valley Vote meeting. "You see the dollars go in and they disappear. You have to ask yourseld does L.A. have a revenue problem or a cost problem."

Antonovich was elected to the county board of supervisors in 1980 - country supervisors have no term limits.

He wonders why a city with a $7 billion budget can't provide efficient mass transit. One reason may be that it doesn't have a $22 billion budget like the county, according to the Valley Vote newsletter. But Antonovich suspects the real reason is that downtown business interests - and the politicians they control - don't listen to the neighborhoods.

"Many years ago, Valley voters were asked if they wanted a subway or a monorail to run along the 101 to downtown," Antonovich recalled at the Valley Vote meeting. "The monorail came out No. 1; the subway finished last. But Dick Riordan got the city to vote against it and the (Los Angeles) Times never referred to the vote of the people in its reporting. City Hall and the Times brushed you aside and now you don't have mass transit to anywhere. The reason is that transit dollars are spent by the Metro Transit Authority (which is dominated by Antonio Villaraigosa.) That's why instead of using the right of ways we already have to complete the Gold and Expo lines, the mayor wants to spent $5 billion to build the subway to the sea."

LA's habit of caving to developers and discarding agreed-upon development plans is reflected in its handling of county airports, according to Valley Vote's newsletter.

"In the 1960s, LA wanted to have airports serving the entire region so LAWA acquired Ontario and Palmdale. Eventually, LAWA put more parking at Ontario, but it dragged it's feet in promoting Palmdale. The 405 doesn't expand like a pair of pantyhose," he said with a smile. "It makes no sense for people from Ventura and Kern counties to go all the way to LAX when they could go to Palmdale or Ontario."

To insure that at least Los Angeles can use Palmdale, Antonovich said that three weeks ago the county began providing bus service from Van Nuys to the Palmdale airport, the Valley Vote newsletter states.

Valley Vote is the organization that led a petition drive to place a measure before voters in 2002 seeking to secede the San Fernando Valley from the city of Los Angeles. The measure did not pass.

Today, Valley Vote's mission is to explore and foster the implementation of programs that empower the people of the Valley and city of Los Angeles in order to improve local governance, education and public participation on policy matters.