L.A. City Council panels to consider Michael Jackson memorial costs today

Two Los Angeles City Council committees are scheduled to meet today to discuss the controversial issue of who should pay the public cost of Michael Jackson's downtown Los Angeles memorial ceremony.

The committees are a prelude to the expected Los Angeles City Council decision this week on whether Anschutz Entertainment Group should help taxpayers cover the costs of Jackson's funeral.

And if AEG steps forward with a check, it will be the latest move by the Jackson promoter to help the city's elected officials out of a jam.

When the council sought voter approval of a $1-billion affordable-housing bond in 2006, AEG and its affiliates contributed $75,000. When Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa needed help with a telephone tax measure two years later, Tim Leiweke, AEG's president and chief executive, gave $100,000 and urged other businesses to do the same.

And when council members faced the prospect of being ousted by term limits, the company and its affiliates stepped forward with more than $137,000 -- becoming the biggest single donor to the ballot measure, which gave council members the ability to run for a third term. Had that measure been defeated, five council members would now be out of office, and four others would have had to leave in 19 months.

Because of those donations, some critics are skeptical that council members will press AEG, which runs both Staples Center and the nearby L.A. Live entertainment complex, to help defray the city's $3.2-million cost for police as well as cleanup after the July 7 memorial.

"I don't believe they can separate themselves" from the campaign contributions, said Lisa Sarkin, who serves on the Studio City Neighborhood Council.

The memorial was televised around the globe and ended with the message "All Rights Reserved" by AEG. Last summer, the city's involvement in the event sparked criticism from taxpayers, in part because L.A. was facing a $400-million budget shortfall.

Councilwoman Jan Perry, whose district includes Staples Center, acknowledged last week that AEG is a player in Los Angeles politics. But to view the company exclusively through that lens misses the larger picture, said Perry, who praised the company for giving generously to charity, transforming a decaying section of downtown L.A.  and providing much-needed jobs in an economic downturn.

"AEG doesn't own the place. ... I think that's a really stupid way to think," said Perry, who would have been forced from office in June had the term limits measure been defeated.

AEG declined to comment for this report. But in previous interviews, AEG officials have said they were  politically active because they wanted to make Los Angeles a safer, more economically healthy city.

-- Phil Willon and David Zahniser

Photo: Mariah Carey performs during the Michael Jackson memorial, held July 7, 2009, at downtown L.A.'s Staples Center. Credit: Wally Skalij / Los Angeles Times

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Comments

[Julian B Duron]

Follow the polical campaign contributions from AEG to this Polical Machine here in this city. "QUID PRO QUO" no one pays the amount money AEG pays to ally's on council unless they can expect favorable votes.
The decision process on this matter was questionable at best at the time it was made.

[Hmmm]

Seems like a LOT of financial back-scratching has been going on between AEG and the City...why can't we BAN these sorts of contributions?

The point is, apparently AEG owes a lot of our City Council scum some favors, so time to pay up.

If they don't, once again the taxpayers will be on the hook. I don't recall signing up to donate one red cent to the funeral of a drug-addled entertainer who preferred the company of little boys! I loved his music as much as anybody else, but business is business. These morons will not continue to furlough my friends--and cut services to my family--while they force us taxpayers to pay for this millionaire's funeral!

[TD]

What!? What kind of wackos are running that asylum down there? This pedophile gets buried in a $350,000 suit and the city is expected to pay for it? Why is the city involved in the funeral in the first place? The city of LA sure as hell didn't pay for my parents' funerals. And on top of everything else, we've got that paragon of integrity, AEG buying local politicians left and right. Looks like LA is even more corrupt than Washington, DC...well, maybe not but it's damned close.

[Careful Listener]

True the city is in a budget crisis and Jan Perry and Dennis Zine do seem to have dropped the ball in being pro-active about these costs as Acting Mayor and her Second in Command/Pro Tem, with the Mayor and Council President both being gone.

But the fact is that THERE IS NO LEGAL BASIS FOR THIS DEMAND FROM AEG AND TRUTANICH/ ZINE'S DEMANDS TO MAKE UP FOR THEIR LACK OF FORESIGHT IS IN FACT BULLYING AND POSSIBLY EXTORTION IF TRUTANICH'S DEMANDS TO PAY UP (THE $6 Million amount HE made up) "Or I'll get you" are taken into account. Trutanich was even forced to admit that, then was at a loss for words to try to explain WHAT basis he's using for this shakedown.

Here's the L A Daily News story on this today, parts of which appeared a couple of weeks ago in an earlier article:

"Although the city had no 'ordinance in place providing for cost recovery,' as the report (by top city legal and financial advisors) noted, City Attorney Carmen Trutanich has been determined to seek reimbursements from Anschutz Entertainment Group, which organized the July 7 Memorial at Staples Center."

"'I think that there may not be an ordinance that specifically calls that out, but there's plenty of theories of the law that date back to the beginning of the legal structure that give us the legal basis for reimbursement,' Trutanich told City News Service without elaboration."

THIS IS SHEER BLUFFING AND GIBBERISH. YOU DON'T SHAKE DOWN A MULTI-BILLION DOLLAR COMPANY WHICH IS A MAJOR CONTRIBUTOR OF TAXES, JOBS AND INVESTMENTS BASED ON FICTITIOUS "THEORIES"AND VAGUE/NON-EXISTENT "LEGAL STRUCTURES" THAT ALLEGEDLY "DATE BACK TO THE BEGINNING OF THE LEGAL STRUCTURE," WHATEVER THAT MEANS.

They conclude with AEG Tom Leiweke's demand that Trutanich "prove it or drop it," the allegations that they did anything wrong, "adding that Trutanich 'has been doing around for 5 mos. defaming me and my company, and we did nothing wrong."

Added to actually threatening to JAIL AEG's top lawyer, an executive and Councilwoman Jan Perry herself for disagreeing over another matter involving AEG, the billboard issue. A clear totalitarian violation of the First Amendment which would have ANY OTHER CITY ATTORNEY WHO'S NOT THE PUPPET OF THE RIGHT-WING DA STEVE COOLEY ON EVERY ISSUE, HAULED BEFORE THE ETHICS COMMISSION FOR GROSS ABUSE OF POWER OR EVEN, QUITE LIKELY, CHARGED WITH MISDEMEANOR OR EVEN FELONY - COLLUDING WITH AND INTIMIDATING UNDERLINGS AND ASSOCIATES, ANYONE ELSE, TO DO SAME AS HE - WITH FELONY COLLUSION FOR MISCONDUCT. Instead, milking the "juice" that served him through his career as criminal lawyer in Long Beach - still part of L A County and his friend's jurisdiction - threatening "to walk me across the street to the DA's office," Perry related, sheerly abusing power to get her to shut up. (Whose "opinion" on that or any other matter where officials believe they're doing their job, is NO MATTER.)