No stopping Trutanich as he arrives at L.A. City Hall to take oath

As crowds gathered for the inauguration this morning of city officials, police closed Spring Street just west of City Hall, making for traffic gridlock around the Civic Center.

One Times reporter noticed that a town car seemed to ignore the chaos -- and traffic rules -- and pulled into a “No Stopping” zone just north of City Hall along Temple.

The car bore a “Carmen Trutanich '09” license plate frame. Trutanich, the new city attorney, alighted from the car, shook hands with a group of police riding on horseback. and posed for a picture with the officers before walking toward City Hall.

-- William Nottingham

Photo: Carmen Trutanich awaits election returns in Universal City in May. Credit: Lawrence K. Ho / Los Angeles Times

Comments

[Steve]

Um, Carmen, you were elected to bring an end to Delgadillo's era of malfeasance. So even the appearance of rules-skirting and impropriety bodes ill. Just follow the laws of the City - the ones the citizens follow - and we're cool.

[Los ojos]

Carmen is a pompous horse's derriere never mind posing with the horses. Boasted during his speech about being the son of a poor cannery row worker, had the theatrics down with tears in his eyes and voice, never mind that he's spent the last 25 years making a bundle defending criminals. He didn't mention that part while talking about defending the environment and prosecuting gangs, stuff he hasn't done in 25 years since he became a hired gun for the other side. (I won't even mention guns and the NRA.)

It's just the phoniness that made my stomach churn. His buddy who's responsible for his entire campaign, DA Steve Cooley, added to it by saying this had been a campaign "between darkness and the light," he all but brought out the halo and wings -- give me a barf break How dumb and naive do they think we are? That stuff is what they spout on rightwing talk radio to Kevin James; crowd on a regular basis but I've always liked to think that this city is becoming more not less cosmopolitan and "sophisticated" with energy from people from other great cities like New York, London, Seoul and Rome as well as those who think of it as a cow-poke town of yesterday.

Trutanich pointedly didn't applaud when Villaraigosa talked about his own accomplishments like with improved performance at his cluster of schools, and the performance of the cuncilmembers who also were just inaugurated. Letting him speak at all was a gracious and precedent-breaking move by the mayor in the first place. Despite a nasty campaign Trutanich ran against his personal choice.

Like or hate their work, this was rude and showed the lack of grace in victory that even some former supporters or those on the fence like me have commented on and are turned off by. His supporters have been on blogs alll over and behind the scenes threatening retaliation against councilmembers who unlike Zine, Hahn and some last-minute ones who didn't support him. That and partisan Republican behavior are not cool. The "parking rules are for everyone but me" attitude seems indicative of his holier-than-thou attitude so far and it's not cool either, dude. You work for the whole city, not just the Antonio and Democrat-haters you pandered to during the race.

[Chintan]

Well the Times has been wanting the Mayor to make good on his promises from last time with an ambitious agenda while doing everything in its power to write articles and OpEds to defeat the Mayor's choice of City Attorney, someone he could trust and work with to further his goals, and to lobby for someone who ran on opposing everything Antonio and his Administration stand for and have done..

Based on this it sounds like if you liked Bradley-Gates or Delgadillo-Chick you'll love the Villaraigosa-Trutanich show even more.

[Kelvin]

Trutanich's 11 year old Town Car was driven by a LAPD officer from the security detail assigned by LAPD to provide security for Trutanich, the mayor and Bratton.

Unlike the mayor, who has a $50k city car that we pay for, Trutanich wants to use his old car and not cost the taxpayer money in these troubled times.

LAPD made the call to deliver the City Attorney to a pre-arranged location for his safe arrival at the inauguration, not Trutanich.

Why does the City Attorney need a security detail, you ask? Well that's obvious from the comments already posted - he already has a load of enemies. Sick individuals who cannot get over the fact that someone honest, accomplished and accountable managed to defeat the king of corruption by a convincing margin in a city election.

Now get over it and let him do his job - another novel idea in Los Angeles politics that his detractors cannot fathom.