Fredo Corleone: I'm your older brother, Mike, and I was stepped over!Michael Corleone: That's the way Pop wanted it.
Fredo Corleone: It ain't the way I wanted it! I can handle things! I'm smart! Not like everybody says... like dumb... I'm smart and I want respect!
Richard Alarcon is a corrupt career politician who currently has a seat on the Los Angeles City Council representing the 7th District. Alarcon is making headlines this week because he got caught pulling a career politician stunt.
That is something that is not allowed by the City. However, several other elected officials are guilty of this type of "position hunting" without actually wanting to give up residence in their primary palace. Paul Krekorian is a recent political scavenger who went looking for the scraps left over from Wendy Gruels unfinished term on City Council. The shockingly repulsive behavior by Krekorian, who abandoned an elected position only months after the election, was kind of a mirror image of the corruption of Richard Alarcon, who also abandoned an elected position almost immediately to run for a City Council seat.
Alarcon is turning out to be the Fredo Corleone of City politics. A guy who thinks he's pretty smart, but actually isn't. Alarcon has left a trail of lies and deceit that is about to catch up with him.
He wasn't living in his voting residence, a fact that is backed up by Controller Wendy Greuels statements that Alarcon had asked her in 2007 about changing a City Council boundary in order to make things easier for him to continue his deception. Statements by witnesses make it clear that Alarcon had not been living in the house for at least three years.
Alarcon is at the point now where he can't keep all his lies straight anymore. First he told the L.A. Times he was living there. Then , just days later, he comes out with a different story - one about a homeless man who broke into the house and started "squatting" there. The problem with this storyline is that it actually backs up the allegation that Alarcon had not been living there. Not the best excuse. And Alarcons comments about "safety" are laughable and ridiculous. If a sitting City Council Member can't get some extra police protection for his primary residence.......
Former Mayoral Candidate Walter Moore, on his blog, calls Alarcons defenses "bullshit".
I am in complete agreement with Mr. Moore on this issue.
Alarcon has a long record of professional misbehavior, a fact that is clearly lost on his voters.
In the past, Alarcon has doled out large sums of public money to a wide variety of girlfriends, ex-girlfriends, and ex-wives. He has also had a variety of blood relatives placed on various boards and committees.
I was attending the City Council meeting where he had his daughter installed on the Taxicab Commission, even though she admitted to still being in law school at the time.
Luckily for L.A. voters, it appears that District Attorney Steve Cooley may be willing to bring the Councilmans shenanigans to an end. A felony conviction for voter registration fraud seems certain to be in the cards for Alarcon.
It's about time.
If I had been elected Mayor of Los Angeles in 2009, Alarcons trip to a jail cell would have happened a lot faster.
