Antonio Villaraigosa's fund-raiser o' the day

It's Day Four of our look at the fund-raising sprint by L.A.'s mayor -- 11 events in nine days. Since it's a rare day of rest for Antonio Villaraigosa, our man in City Hall, David Zahniser, is back with details of Wednesday night's event in San Francisco:

Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa does not, in fact, have an event Thursday night where he is raising money for his 2009 reelection. Or at least, he has no invitation filed for today with the city’s Ethics Commission, which would make sense since the mayor will spend the morning pushing for a transit-tax hike and the evening at a gala for the Getty House Foundation, the nonprofit group that maintains the mayor’s mansion in Windsor Square.

So instead, let's take a look at the Villaraigosa fund-raiser held last night in San Francisco, a champagne reception headed by three S.F. politicos, who served as co-chairs. Dist. Atty. Kamala Harris, Supervisor Fiona Ma and former mayor and state Assembly speaker Willie Brown, a mentor of Villaraigosa, each promised to raise at least $10,000, according to the invitation filed with the city’s Ethics Commission.

The fourth and final co-chair on the invitation is Darius Anderson, president of the lobbying and government relations firm Platinum Advisers. Although Platinum is not a registered lobbyist in the city of Los Angeles, it has 61 clients in Sacramento, according to the secretary of state’s website. Those clients include AT&T, Lennar Homes, the Shingle Springs Band of Miwok Indians and the city of Upland, whose motto just happens to be “The City of Gracious Living,” by the way.

Those clients might not need any help from Mayor Villaraigosa in 2009. But Gov. Villaraigosa in 2010? You never know.

We'll be back with Day Five of our fund-raiser watch tomorrow.

-- Veronique de Turenne

Photo: Associated Press

Comments

[JR]

This is stupid, the mayor is asking us to allow a tax hike at the same time he's rasing money for his own relection. Why don't he raise money for the transit? If you keep going this way mayor, there wont be a relection for you.

[Maria]

Just goes to show rich people can really be stupid at times. They are out of touch wtih what is really going on in this city living in their nice cars, and mansions. The people who know better will campaign hard against the loser Mayor cause they know he's done nothing but raise taxes. He has no list of accomplilshments to speak of and rides on the coat tails of Bratton. Sad, pathetic little clown the Mayor of LA is.