Villaraigosa’s report card
and a looming $400 million deficit
Editors note: Posted originally on 2-09-2009
Mail-in ballots are arriving in homes right now. City elections are coming up in March. Here is why Mayor Villaraigosa should not be granted a second term as mayor. Imagine another four years?
The report card for Antonio Villaraigosa’s first term as mayor.
F- The city’s fiscal condition crumbles under his administration. Not enough money to fix sidewalks, hire police, keep libraries open. Next year, we expect the city’s deficit to rise to $400 million.
D- Villaraigosa’s spends only about 11% of his time dealing with city business. Refer to L.A.Weekly – The all-about-me mayor and LA Weekly Story – The still all-about-me mayor.
F Villaraigosa continues to promote L.A.’s massive housing growth, policies that are largely responsible for increased gridlock and drought. The California Department of Finance projects 19 million new residents in Southern California and the mayor is bending over backwards to meet L.A.’s share. Even if it lowers the quality of life for L.A.’s current residents.
F Villaraigosa declares the Crane as the official bird of Los Angeles. Not the feathered sort. He was referring to the construction cranes throughout downtown and West Los Angeles used to build those multi-story high density housing projects that bring with them more vehicles and less water availability to L.A. residents.
F Villaraigosa lamely attempts to capture the energy of angry grid locked motorists and translate that into his high density solution. What he doesn’t get is that with high density, we get more people and more cars thus more grid lock. Sorry but there will never be enough bus routes or buses to serve a city of 500 square miles and 4 million people.
F Villaraigosa continues to remain mum on LAWA’s march to expand the airport despite promises in two mayoral campaigns to not allow airport expansion. Villaraigosa SIGNED the ARSAC Promise not to expand the airport, yet he keeps the door open to moving the run way 340′ north and leveling yet more of the Westchester business district and more homes.
F- Villaraigosa asks city residents to use less water despite his own super-sized requirements of 386,716 gallons per year (L.A. Times Story) while the average Angeleno uses only 55,576 gallons.
F- Going further, Villaraigosa imposes an emergency water ordinance that fines residents for watering their lawns during the day. However, he doesn’t impose new restrictions on developers while they add roughly 16,000 new housing unit a year. Each new housing unit connected to the water supply adds 100,000 gallons of water to L.A.’s fixed water allocation.
F Villaraigosa quietly negotiates a “settlement” on the evening of Yom Kippur leaving L.A. residents on the hook for $2.8 million in ‘Dog food’ Tennie Pierce suit. This was $100,000 more than the first settlement he vetoed months earlier. Patterico’s Pontifications
C- Villaraigosa’s LAUSD takeover bill AB1381 was found to be unconstitutional in court. Villaraigosa still manages to obtain control of a few schools under the iDivision partnership.
F Trash pickup fees were hiked 330% to add 1000 LAPD officers but only 1/3 of the 137 million raised went to hiring new officers. The rest went to police vehicles, raises and perks to the police union. L.A. Slams Residents With Stiff Fees and Taxes
F Villaraigosa replaces an illegal phone tax with a new tax measure to replace it. He sells the new tax to the voters as a 10% cut over the old illegal tax.
F Continues to support Special Order 40 which prevents LAPD officers from obtaining immigration status of detained suspects.
F Two years after he campaigned as a family man, Villaraigosa leaves his wife and kids to begin dating a Telemundo TV reporter. He previously fathered two children out of wedlock with two different mothers.
F Jon Coupal give Villaraigosa an F. “I think it’s one of the most poorly managed cities in the country,” Jon Coupal, president of the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association, said of Los Angeles.”
F Villaraigosa, the “Green candidate” agrees to a settlement allowing billboard companies to “digitize” 877 billboards throughout the city in exchange for a list of billboard locations throughout the city, many that are illegal. Digital billboards threaten to alter the quality of life for all residents in the City of Los Angeles.
F The digital billboard plan is clearly at odds to Villaraigosa’s ‘Green LA’ plan since each digital billboard, rated at 23,000 watts per hour uses enough power to supply 20 single family residents.
F Villaraigosa agrees to more electricity rate hikes even though the city receives hundred of millions of dollars in power fund transfers from the DWP each year. Money deemed as ‘excess funds” by the DWP. So why is trash and electricity going up if there is too much money?
F While promoting public transit and urging the council and other departments to cut usage of their take-home cars – the Mayor is driven around in a 2005 GMC Yukon at an average rate of 73 miles per day or that’s about $7,900 a year in gas ($4.19 using city government’s own fleet-fueling pumps).
F Villaraigosa promised to help create an “emerald necklace” of parks throughout Los Angeles when he ran for mayor in 2005. Los Angeles never got those parks.
F The mayor doesn’t want to debate any of the candidates in this election. Shouldn’t L.A.’s residents have an opportunity to hear his policies debated side by side with the other candidates for mayor?
It’s time for CHANGE!
Spot on commentary, David.
So I wake up today and open the LA Times, and note that our fearless Mayor has again called for water rationing. And then when I turn of the 5 AM news, it is reported that he may run for CA Governor in 2010.
Listen to this profound quote from the Times article:
“The vast majority of people will actually save money if they reduce their water usage,” Villaraigosa.
Is he a Mental Giant, or what?
I have a copy of his original campaign website. He didn’t keep his campaign promises. He missed all of his goals. Here are a few things to note.
He stated that “the zoo is no place for elephants” then he allows the zoo to keep elephants at a huge cost to taxpayers.
He stated that he would make LA a “nokill” city. He hires Ed Boks to just lie about progress. Euthanasia is now up over 30%. More animals are dying than before.
He promised to plant a million trees. No where close. Notice he doesn’t mention this any more.In fact his current campaign platforms are different than the ones from 2005 because he didn’t meet those goals.
He is currently campaigning saying he’s the greenest Mayor. He is not. In fact he allowed the new animals shelters to get rid of solar power in order to save money. Yet, he wants all of us to pay for his solar power with the new measure. He then allowed the shelters to add expensive water guzzling landscaping.
He failed LAUSD. It’s embarrassing to think we are the 49th worse state in the nation in terms of education.
Even though the city has been sued for sexual harassment many times in the last four years, he got rid of the sexual harassment prevention program and instead bought more insurance because it was cheaper.
Its true – our mayor DID fail LAUSD, in addition to the bar exam, four times.
That’s why the $400 million dollar “budget shortfall” is actually a ONE BILLION dollar gap.
Why? Because LA gets to fund CalPers’s losses. We can’t have retired state employees pensions drop.
Congrats, LA, for re-electing the same inmates to run the asylum for another four years.
Policies? Ha! All that matters is that Tony Villar is a minority and a smooth talking demagogue.
Also, it’s not like his opposition was top-notch…