Comments@TheGussReport – For precisely 100 tedious but remarkably uncomfortable minutes last week, the LA City Council debated ways for its 15 members to legally accept bribes for selling their votes, but without all the hubbub and inconvenience of the FBI raiding their home and City Hall office, followed by indictment, prosecution, incarceration, appeal, parole, bankruptcy, divorce, custody battle, etc.
Then the lawmakers decided, “Hey, you know what? Let’s not make any reforms kick-in until after the 2020 election cycle,” so it’s no biggie for the time being … Still, the lawmakers climbed over one another to share their own curious cash confessions and where the illegality line is drawn and approached.
There were lots of awkward grins during the discussion, most by Councilmember David Ryu as he waxed of “historic!” reforms, when it could have been boiled down to a simple sentence: sell your vote for dirty money at your own peril.
The uncomfortable presence in the room was Councilmember Jose Huizar, whose life has sucked a whole lot since the FBI did in fact raid his home and City Hall office a few months back. As his peers spoke in serious tones, Huizar said nothing, didn’t follow the discussion, sipped coffee, dozed and checked his messages, while his nearest seatmates Gil Cedillo and Paul Koretz skedaddled as photos of him were snapped during the agenda item.
The matter was eventually sent back to committee for further massaging and messaging.
For those new to the subject, it comes as no surprise that Huizar, now a City Hall pariah, was the first Councilmember raided by the FBI; he openly admitted to the Daily News a few years back that he knows when to approve a real estate development; not because it is the right thing to do for the City and taxpayers, but because his “best friend” LA City Council president Herb Wesson “nudges” him when everything is a go.
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Speaking of friends, Councilmember Curren Price and I had a polite 25-second chat in a City Hall back room, which ended with him giving me a “thumbs-up.” That wasn’t the gesture I expected, given the subject (not his bigamy; something else) but I’m glad he chose it. He can share the nature of our chat with you, if he so chooses.
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Kudos to KNBC’s Joel Grover for his outstanding ongoing story of a block-long garbage pile in downtown LA that Mayor Eric Garcetti swore was continually cleaned up, except that it wasn’t.
Garcetti’s default is, and has for a long time been, lies, photo-ops and free travel. But can anyone tell us why it seems that hizzoner’s wife, Amy Wakeland, has an office in the Mayor’s City Hall wing?
Talk about a corrupt agency, why does Department of General Services GM Tony Royster’s office take months to respond to a one-item public records request – a map of room assignments in Garcetti’s offices – and then insists that one must come to his office in order to see it in person? That’s not very green!
When I challenged Royster’s flunkies on that, I was told that I need to mail them a check to pay for a 10-cent copy. Not very green either!
I am still waiting for a list of everyone who has paid that 10-cent fee in the past.
Of course, they couldn’t explain why they would charge anything, since the document already exists and can be emailed for free, which is also carbon footprint friendly. No paper, no ink, no postage…what is that fee for?
See? You can learn a lot not just from making public record requests, but from the response you get when making the request itself. I’m going to mail Mr. Royster a few dollars so they can then be forced to track my remaining balance of $1.70 for the next 20 years. But can anyone explain why, in this era of “green,” so much of Garcetti’s and Wesson’s government still cannot accept electronic payments, such as these few dimes?
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Thank you once again to KFI AM-640’s “John and Ken Show” for doing a segment on my column from last week, namely Councilmember Paul Koretz’s hypocrisy about veganism, and a certain decapitated City Hall pig. Not a figurative pig, but a literal one. Click here to listen and advance to the 28 minute 50 second point. But you really should listen to their whole show; it is LA’s and California’s best and continuous line of defense from government corruption, chaos and stupidity, in no particular order.
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If things continue this way, Dodger starting pitcher Hyun-Jin Ryu may be the lead candidate for baseball’s National League Cy Young Award. He leads the League in six pitching categories, including an insane 15.5 strikeouts for each walk he issues, demonstrating incredible control. By comparison, 1965 was Sandy Koufax’s best season at that statistic with 5.38 strikeouts per walk, earning him the second of his three Cy Youngs. And in 1905, Cy Young himself hurled his best 7.0 strikeouts per walk.
Good times.
(Daniel Guss, MBA, is a member of the Los Angeles Press Club, and has contributed to CityWatch, KFI AM-640, Huffington Post, Los Angeles Times, Los Angeles Daily News, Los Angeles Magazine, Movieline Magazine, Emmy Magazine, Los Angeles Business Journal and elsewhere. Follow him on Twitter @TheGussReport. His opinions are his own and do not necessarily reflect the views of CityWatch.)
-cw
