I was going to make comments about the May 19th election, but decided to let it drop... enough time has passed....let's move forward. I concentrated on talking about the protest outside Henry Waxmans office -- 8436 West 3rd Street on Friday, May 29th at noon.
I explained how Cap & Trade is a liberal fantasy about controlling CO2 that will cost the US jobs and growth and raise taxes on energy by over 1.9 TRILLION dollars. It couldn't come at a worse time.
Council President Garcetti admonished me about staying on topic about Council business. I told him I was talking about the economic survival of the United States. I said "that is everyones business".
Several things of interest today in City Council...
1) One of the first subjects up was about the City being "given" a street in San Pedro from the Federal Government...and being handed a few million dollars to boot! Council Member Janice Hahn seemed pretty proud about this achievement. I wish I knew more about it, but the details got skipped over pretty quick.
2) Eternal thorn and career public commentator Arnold Sachs managed to get himself booted from City Hall for a few sessions. Sachs is a City Hall denizen who is about as popular in City Council chambers as a subpoena. That said, I appreciate his efforts because he routinely protests obscure actions by the City Council that the media ignores. Sometimes, he is the only voice of opposition. But today he was a bit aggressive, calling the Council Members "criminals"...which I'm sure they didn't appreciate. Council President Garcetti told Sachs he was "out" for a few sessions. Poor Arnold...he means well. Don't know what he will do with all the free time, but to be honest...I was never quite sure why he went to City Council meetings in the first place. Sachs once admitted to me that he doesn't even live in Los Angeles.
3) Aggressive Socialists wearing red ACORN t-shirts were there demanding free housing or reduced cost housing. I was appalled by their shameless behavior. One of them said housing was their "right". Another said "give us our housing!" Yet another said that if she didn't get her reduced cost housing... "we will come after you!" Frightening. I thought it highly ironic that language like that coming from Zuma Dogg would probably end up with him in handcuffs. But for the liberals? Totally OK with it. Wearing the color RED was appropriate for them because they won't be Socialists for long. They see the end game in the distance. Is this what Los Angeles has become? A city of panhandlers with government enablers?
3) City Hall celebrity gadfly Zuma Dogg and his partner in crime Matt Dowd (Dowd had recently been booted for swearing during Council meetings) continued their colorful and spicy commentary on the Council, actually getting away with calling the Council members "losers" several times. Dowd repeatedly called Jack Weiss a "loser" while referring to the recent election results.
(As an aside, I can accept Zuma Doggs criticisms because he's originally from Cleveland, but I have never been fond of listening to Dowd criticizing U.S. politicians. He sounds like a bit of an ingrate. If he doesn't like things here in this generous country that has been so kind to allow him to live here... he always has the option of buying a return ticket on Quantas.)
4) I was anticipating fireworks to go off when they got to subject 11 in the meeting... LACERS! The bungled City retirement investments. The discussion of Zuma Doggs favorite subject was almost certain to cause him to have a meltdown...but surprise- surprise!!...the Council skipped the commentary and nobody from the public got to speak about it. They hurriedly moved to a secretive, closed session and kicked everyone out of the chambers. Very strange. I didn't like the lack of transparency there.
5) When the Council came back from the secret session, I arrived too late and missed my turn to speak about the budget. I was disappointed because I wanted to confront the Council over pandering to the Socialists. Wendy Gruel sent one of the LAPD officers to inform me that I had missed my turn. I was impressed. Wendy Gruel and I don't agree on political issues, but I admire her professionalism. She pays attention to small details and keeps her head in the game. That's important. Hopefully she will be a great Controller.
Because I had missed my turn to speak, I bolted from the Council meeting to go get something to eat.
Walking down Main Street, who do I see but new City Attorney Nuch Trutanich!!
It was very obvious to me that Nuch is busy as hell right now - he was talking on two cell phones at the same time!
He had one on both sides of his head, trying to have two conversations at once.
I waited until he was done and shook hands with him and congratulated him on his victory.
We talked for a few minutes about the transition. He sounded frustrated that Rocky Delgadillo wasn't making the transition easy for him. I told him he should go into Delgadillos office and start firing staffers left and right.
I said "They know they are out of power now and that's politics. When your man loses, the whole support staff and assistants crowd gets tossed out." I told him that I would love to have the opportunity to march into City Hall and replace some of the deadwood...some of the bad government employees.
"Fill out an application" , he said, joking and laughing as he walked away.
Nuch is a great guy. A lot of people in this City are counting on him.
I hope he does a great job.
