Is Everything Really Local?

I live in the Northwest part of the San Fernando Valley in a community called Canoga Park. Most of the Valley is within the city limits of Los Angeles. It’s a one hour drive to downtown Los Angeles. That is the location of city hall and where the city council meets. This is not a convenient location for most residence in the San Fernando Valley.

As a result, city decisions about this community are made with little input from Canoga Park residents (most are at work during city council meetings). To give each community in the city a sense of participation the city charter requires the government to create local neighborhood councils. However the local councils have no authority to affect any services provided to the communities. The councils only have advisory authority. I posted a blog entry about neighborhood councils on August 27, 2007.

The consequence of this government arrangement is local participation in neighborhood councils is minimal. After all, who wants to be a part of a group that cannot accomplish anything? Despite this predicament, a home owner three blocks from me is trying to organize a local group that might be able to influence the downtown bureaucracy with respect to maintenance of the neighborhood (street paving, tree trimming, street cleaning, etc.).

I have visited many of my neighbors to encourage them to participate in this endeavor. Some have said they are interested. This will be an ongoing effort. I will post success or failures here.

Balancing Los Angeles City Budget

There are 39 separate categories (departments or commissions) listed in the Los Angeles city budget. However 28 of those categories have budgets in the current fiscal year that are higher than last year’s budget. Those budgets are anywhere from 8% higher to 100% higher. The city clerk department has a budget that is twice last year’s budget.

I obtained this information from the mayor’s city budget website, http://www.lacity.org/mayor/budget/. I downloaded the information into an Excel spreadsheet and proceeded to do a little analysis. I am not an accountant but the information was just easy to acquire, as it should be, and did a little reading and sorting of data.

Here is another bit of surprising information. This year’s actual spending is exceeding the budget in 14 of the 39 departments.

I questioned why many of the departments exist. The housing department caught my eye. The department costs over $38 million dollars in salaries and another $6 million in operating expenses this year. ”The Los Angeles Housing Department has four program areas, housing, rent, code enforcement and compliance” The department also manages the Displaced Tenant Relocation fund that is estimated to be $500,000 this year. The total budget for this department in 2005-06 year was $36 million. That is a 22% increase in just one year ($38 million dollars plus $6 million).

The city’s elected officials know that there is a budget issue but have done little to stem the unbudgeted spending. Many are taking their pay raises with claims that they will donate the money to charity but the money for those raises is not really available. Worse are recently negotiated pay raises for all city employees. The police department’s new headquarters has seen its cost double from approximately $200 million dollars to $400 million. Many millions of dollars is being allocated for a new children’s museum.

Now the mayor has declared an emergency that enables the city to ask city voters for a new phone tax that only requires a majority yes vote to pass। If it wasn’t an emergency passing the tax would require a vote of at least 66.6%.

The lack of responsibility among city council members and the mayor is the emergency.

Presidential Debates Have Been Disappointing

How boring! Most of the candidates in each party’s debates (they are really forums) mimic each other. The contenders of each party try to catch their opponents in an error. The one exception is Ron Paul. He is a Republican who actually brings his own thought to those utterly uninspiring debates. He has raised enough money to actually become a contender.

The Democrats are particularly unanimous in their views. Each of them tries his/her very best to avoid taking a stand on any issue. Actually they try to avoid all issues. The best example is providing a commitment to issue driver’s licenses to illegal aliens. Hilary Clinton flipped on this issue for two weeks and then said no. At the November 15 debate Barak Obama used 192 words before finally saying “yes”.

The Republicans also take the same views with the exception of Ron Paul and Rudy Giuliani. Unlike Ron Paul the other Republicans subscribe to the idea of not telling voters anything about their views. Rudy Giuliani’s social liberalism and Mitt Romney’s religion have become talk show fodder. I find it utterly dismaying that Mitt Romney’s religious belief have become an issue. That Romney’s Mormon religion is being discussed is an indicator that bigotry still exists in the United States or that it is at least important in the Republican party. No wonder I have become an Independent. I personally dis-associated myself from a friend who showed himself to be a bigot and I would not be part of any group that stood for any bigotry.

I like Rudy Giuliani. His social liberalism makes him an excellent candidate for president against any Democrat. He could win next November. He and Hillary will have to take firm stands on real issues to win.

Political Junky

I am a political junky. Some people love sports so much that they stay home to watch every game no matter what the sport. I would watch political show all the time if it wasn’t for my lovely wife. Even as I am watching This Week on ABC, I am recording Meet The Press on NBC. The DVR is a wonderful thing! I listen to talk radio all the time, even when I do not agree with the hosts. Know thine enemy would be my reasoning. I admit I have been watching all the Dancing with the Stars programs but that’s because of Julieanne Hough. This only proves that there are some things that will distract me (please don’t tell my wife, she never reads these blogs).

I do not have access to any of the politicians so everything I write is based upon all of those columnists that I admire. I put together the pieces by reading their commentaries and adding the news reports.

I read blog writers become recognized by writing almost daily. That is now my objective. Yes I am envious of the columnists in Newsweek, Business Week, the Wall Street Journal, New York Times, and the Washington Post. I am not earning a dime but I am having fun doing these postings.