Roughly 4,000 citations have been given out over the last year to Angelenos who violated the city’s new drought-driven water rules, the top executive at the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power said today.
DWP general manager H. David Nahai told an audience at the Los Angeles Current Affairs Forum that the vast majority of those citations were given to first-time offenders, each of whom got off with a warning. Nevertheless, the city’s roving team of Drought Busters did give citations – and fines -- to 68 second-time offenders and nine third-time offenders.
Three DWP customers have been cited four times and, during their most recent offense, were issued a $300 fine, Nahai said. In each case, the offenders had “unattended leaks” – leaks found on pipes, sprinklers or irrigation lines, DWP officials said.
If those offenders are caught once more, they could be forced by the DWP to install flow restriction devices on their water meters, limiting the flow of water to one gallon per minute.
Los Angeles officials are still struggling to get a handle on how much the Michael Jackson memorial cost the city’s treasury, but newly elected City Controller Wendy Greuel had sticker shock when one relatively small bill crossed her desk.
The Emergency Management Department spent $48,826 for 3,500 lunches from Jensen’s Finest Foods in Wrightwood in San Bernardino County for first responders during the memorial.
The controller didn’t know about the request until after it was approved, because expenditures under $100,000 can be expedited when the city is “operating in an emergency,” according to a letter she sent to the department’s head, James Featherstone.
Greuel told Featherstone she would have rejected the expenditure, particularly after her staff called a nearby Subway and was given an estimate of $17,491.25 for 3,500 boxed lunches. “That’s a potential savings to the taxpayers of more than $31,000,” Greuel wrote.
“While it appears your office followed the rules for when an emergency is declared, it does not appear your office took steps to find the lowest possible price to provide lunch for the first responders,” Greuel wrote. “Additionally, in an effort to support local businesses during these difficult economic times, it would have been preferable to make this purchase from a business located in the city of Los Angeles, as opposed to nearly 80 miles away.”
Featherstone could not immediately be reached for comment.
On Monday, Greuel sent a letter to Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, City Council President Eric Garcetti and the council's budget chairman calling for a new policy governing financial responsibly for extraordinary events to “protect our scarce resources during this budget crisis.”
[Updated 4:27 p.m.:Featherstone said late today that the lunches his department ordered for first responders were intended to keep them fed for what could have been an all-day deployment.
"We have to feed the 3,000-plus responders who are in a ready-response posture. They checked in before dawn and had potential to go for 12 or 15 hours. It wasn’t just a boxed lunch."
The boxed lunches that the department ordered from Jensen's -- a vendor that Featherstone said the city had used for years because of its ability to prepare several thousand lunches for first responders like firefighters within 24 hours -- included two sandwiches, two drinks, package desserts like cookies or brownies, a candy bar, trail mix, chips or crackers, a granola bar and a pack of gum.]
A tagger whom the Los Angeles mayor once offered to mentor after he was photographed scrawling graffiti on a bus was arrested again today for allegedly tagging a tunnel and another bus.
The 17-year-old boy known as Zoner was arrested at about 1:20 p.m. when he surrendered to sheriff's detectives who earlier in the day served a search warrant at his home. The teenager was booked on suspicion of felony vandalism. Sheriff’s investigators claim he scrawled his street name on an MTA bus and other property.
“He started tagging again. Sadly, he is back at the buses again." said Lt. Erik Ruble. "This time it was the Red Line and a bus. You think he would learn after the first time.”
In 2007, when Zoner was a 15-year-old student at Santee Educational Complex south of downtown, he scrawled his nickname on the outside window of a city bus carrying Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa and Schools Supt. David L. Brewer, among others.
The act was captured by a photographer and appeared on the front page of The Times.
In the aftermath, Villaraigosa offered to help the boy by becoming his mentor. But Villaraigosa ran into a host of obstacles. According to sheriff investigators, the mayor did not mentor the boy.
A Santee school principal at the time called the brazen act a "cry for help" from a troubled youth who needed counseling.
Zoner’s brush with infamy occurred as the mayor and superintendent were inaugurating an MTA bus stop at the school that would eliminate a two-block walk that exposed students to dangers of life in the area. When the bus stopped one block from the school, the youth struck.
Here’s some interesting timing. On the same day that Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa held his inaugural ceremony, the New York Times posted on its website a lengthy magazine cover story on the 2010 race for California governor – one that, as of last week, no longer factors Villaraigosa as a contender.
The beaming face on the cover was that of San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom – standing in a beach setting not all that different from the one used by Villaraigosa on the cover of Newsweek four years ago. Villaraigosa, of course, announced live on CNN that he would not run for statewide office.
According to the piece, writer Mark Leibovich went to Villaraigosa’s State of the City Speech in April as part of his research into the upcoming gubernatorial race. During that visit, he accidentally entered the mayor’s dressing room and later concluded that Villaraigosa, of all the potential candidates for governor, seemed to be having “the least fun” at his job.
-- David Zahniser
Photo: Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa speaks during an interview with The Associated Press in the Los Angeles bureau. Credit:
Damian Dovarganes / AP
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
Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa offered sneak peeks of his inaugural speech this morning, sending out a passage in which he promises to keep track of his promises -- by giving the public numerical updates on his goals.
But far more intriguing is a sentence that hints that the mayor might behave in a less flashy way than he did during his first four-year term. Take a look:
"In the next four years, we are going to judge ourselves plain and simple -- based on what we build. We intend to write our record in concrete rather than poetry, focused on deadlines over headlines."
It's that "deadlines over headlines" bit that is sort of interesting.
When he took office four years ago, Villaraigosa wowed the city by seeming to be everywhere -- parades, ribbon cuttings, block parties. But that behavior also drew fire from critics, most notably from the LA Weekly, which accused the mayor of being more interested in fluffy photo ops than the drudgery of policy.
So will he devote less time to promotional events, like the opening of the 100th Panda Express restaurant? Or does that event fit a promise mentioned in another passage of today's speech, in which he says his top priority is to be "L.A.'s No. 1 salesman"?
Favoring deadlines over headlines would be an interesting choice for a mayor who announced his decision not to run for the governor's office live on CNN. One day before the inauguration, CNN's cameras were back in the mayor's office, shooting footage for a special on Latinos in America.
-- David Zahniser
Photo: Antonio Villaraigosa attends an interfaith service at First AME Church before being sworn for his second term as mayor of Los Angeles. Credit: Francine Orr / Los Angeles Times
Job creation will top the agenda of Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa's second and final term in office, which begins today when he is officially sworn in on the south steps of City Hall.
Villaraigosa also will call for a crackdown on the city's failing schools, vowing to work with his political allies on the Los Angeles Unified School District board to find "competitive alternatives," including charter schools, to clean house and to take control of subpar campuses, according to some of the mayor's top aides.
Photo: Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa gestures during an interview
Monday, June 22, 2009, at City Hall in downtown Los Angeles. Credit: AP Photo/Nick Ut
City officials just released the first details: None other than Lakers guard Derek Fisher will be master of ceremonies Wednesday when Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa takes the oath of office for a second four-year term at 11 a.m.
The ceremony will take place on the south steps of City Hall, just across 1st Street from the new police headquarters building.
Also taking an oath of office will be newly elected City Controller Wendy Greuel, City Atty. Carmen Trutanich and 5th District City Councilman Paul Koretz. Seven re-elected council members also will be sworn in, along with City Clerk June Lagmay. [Updated at 2 p.m.: Villaraigosa spokesman Matt Szabo said that Lagmay will not be sworn in, as was stated in an earlier news release. Lagmay will issue the oath of office to the eight incoming council members.]
Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa today issued a rare veto, rejecting a City Council vote that called for using money in a special parking revenue account to help build two parking garages.
The mayor had wanted the council to borrow the garage construction money so the cash in the parking account -- about $20 million -- could be shifted into the general fund's reserve account. That way it could help keep the city budget in balance or be available for other expenses, such as covering the cost of police services.
Council members had balked at the idea of borrowing because interest charges would have added to the cost.
The matter now goes back to the council for reconsideration. It was Villaraigosa’s fifth veto since taking office in 2005.
Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa today announced the expansion of a summertime anti-gang program that includes special community events, after-schools activities, sports leagues and extended nighttime hours at 16 city parks, most in gang-prone areas.
Villaraigosa said the “Summer Night Lights” program helped drive down violent crime, murder and gang activity near the eight parks where the events were held last summer and credited it for helping the city see the “safest summer in more than three decades." The mayor said communities surrounding those parks saw a 17% drop in violent, gang-related crime and an 86% drop in homicides.
Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa will officially lay out his plans for the next four years in his inaugural address Wednesday. But he dropped a few hints in his speech today at the Los Angeles Business Council’s 2009 Sustainability Summit – vowing to “recreate L.A. as the CleanTech, green manufacturing center” of the world.
“This clean-tech future is ours,” said Villaraigosa, who announced last week that he would not run for governor and would instead focus on completing his agenda in Los Angeles. "It is time that we create that new economy, that we center it here in the capital city of the Pacific Rim, that we join business, labor, institutions of higher learning, city, county, all of the public institutions and really reinvent L.A., really begin to put our stamp on the future economy, the green economy here in L.A.”
The mayor said Los Angeles had been “late to the game” in its environmental agenda – chasing cities including Austin, Chicago and Seattle. Although he touted the city’s progress toward drawing more energy from renewable sources, its water conservation efforts and the retrofitting of city buildings to make them more energy efficient, he said efforts so far had been a “pittance” compared to what could be done.
Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa has picked three new commissioners to oversee the city’s employee pension funds, replacing appointees who resigned abruptly last month – two of them in the wake of an inquiry by the Securities and Exchange Commission.
Villaraigosa named attorney Dean Hansell, a police commissioner during the Riordan administration, to replace Sean Harrigan, who had been serving as president of the Fire and Police Pensions. He selected USC professor Adlai Wertman to replace Elliott Broidy, another board member at the public safety pension fund, and offered retired investment executive Roberta Conroy a seat on the Los Angeles City Employees’ Retirement System board.
Broidy and Harrigan stepped down a few weeks after they received a letter from the SEC asking them to describe any contact they had with three firms under scrutiny in the probe of alleged kickbacks in New York state’s pension system. Both men said they had committed no wrongdoing but viewed the SEC inquiry as a distraction.
Harrigan has faced questions over his decision to work for companies that had business before his board, including Wetherly Capital, a third-party marketer with various pension clients. He and his attorney said he recused himself from such matters when necessary.
The Los Angeles City Council voted this afternoon to move ahead with a plan to give early retirement to 2,400 employees while postponing raises for another 22,000, in hopes of balancing the budget without laying off workers or closing City Hall two days a month.
Meeting behind closed doors, the council unanimously voted to forward the proposal to the Coalition of L.A. City Unions for a ratification vote by its members, two council members said. The deal would then return for a second council vote.
“We can’t afford not to do it,” Councilwoman Janice Hahn said, minutes after the vote.
Still, representatives of one union said his members would probably file a legal challenge to the proposed agreement, a copy of which has not yet been released by city officials.
“The [early retirement plan] that they’re proposing is not legal,” said Bob Aquino, executive director of the Engineers and Architects Assn., which represents roughly 7,800 city workers not included in the negotiations.
Two days before the City Council is expected to vote on a crucial early retirement package for thousands of workers -- hoping to avoid the need for layoffs and furloughs -- Los Angeles' most prominent business organization warned that the proposal would increase the city’s “massively unfunded and unsustainable pension liability.”
The Los Angeles Area Chamber of Commerce sent Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa and the City Council a letter today complaining that the public had not been informed of the financial consequences of the proposed agreement, which would delay pay raises for two years for 22,000 workers, then give six increases between July 2011 and January 2014. The proposal was first disclosed in The Times.
Instead, the labor agreement "appears poised to deliver the kind of short-term political gain and long-term financial pain that has contributed to California’s fiscal implosion,” chamber President and Chief Executive Gary Toebben wrote.
Councilwoman Jan Perry would not say how she will vote on Friday. Perry said she has not yet received a report that explains whether the pension fund can absorb the cost of a new early retirement plan.
“The problem is, now we’re up against a deadline, which is July 1” – the start of the new fiscal year, she said.
Just as Los Angeles tries to close a $530-million budget gap, Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa has picked a high-level Los Angeles County executive to serve as the city’s top financial budget adviser, sources familiar with the hire said today.
With the mayor and City Council finalizing an agreement to offer thousands of workers early retirement, Villaraigosa selected the county’s Deputy Chief Executive Officer Miguel Santana, who has been supervising the handling of homeless and social services, including welfare-to-work programs and child protective services.
The Council, looking for “shared sacrifice” from its employees, could vote as soon as Friday on a salary agreement with the Coalition of L.A. City Unions, which represents 22,000 employees. That agreement is designed to avert layoffs and furloughs by delaying salary increases for two years and giving six raises between July 2011 and January 2014, plus two cash bonuses in 2012 and 2013.
Of course L.A. Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa said no to a run for governor.
What else could he say?
You can't do a mediocre job, get lukewarm support in the polls, and announce one week before the start of your second term that you're graduating to bigger challenges. That'd be like getting a 2.0 GPA in high school and announcing you'd like to be a brain surgeon.
Although Villaraigosa had already made it clear he was probably going to bow out of the race, there was our guy on CNN with Wolf Blitzer this afternoon, making it official on national television. Pure Antonio. He actually thinks the rest of the country cares.
"I can't leave this city in the middle of a crisis," he said. "It's as simple as that."
Because of our crisis?
Here's a bulletin: He's not running because at the moment, he knows he wouldn't win, given all the self-inflicted damage he's done by way of empty public promises and dubious private choices.
Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa announced on national television today that he would not be running for California governor in 2010 after flirting with a bid for higher office for months.
“I can’t leave this city in the middle of a crisis," Villaraigosa said. Noting that Los Angeles is grappling with a $530-million deficit, a 12.5% unemployment rate and more than 20,000 people who have lost their homes over the last two years, the mayor said: “I feel compelled to complete what I started out to do.”
Elected to a second, four-year term in March, the mayor broke the news to CNN's Wolf Blitzer on "The Situation Room," saying he wanted to devote his full attention to Los Angeles.
The former state assembly speaker said he had been making up his mind “for a long time” and that the state's challenges had made the decision an "agonizing” one. Villaraigosa called the situation in Sacramento “an abomination,” but hinted at the political risks of announcing a statewide run so soon after being reelected to a second term. “I was elected mayor and reelected by the people of this city.They’ve given me the honor for a second term, and I feel compelled to complete the promise that I made to them. I’m going to dream, and I want the people to dream with me,” he said.
Villaraigosa’s decision adds a dash of clarity to the race for the 2010 Democratic gubernatorial nomination which, at the moment, appears will be between state Atty. Gen. Jerry Brown and San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom. Brown has yet to say if he will run, while Newsom already has announced his candidacy.
In a personal note, Villaraigosa said the demands of the campaign trail would have kept him apart from his 16-year-old daughter, whom he called the “apple of my eye.” “She’s got two more years of high school and then she’s gone, and I don’t want to be campaigning for a year, and then leading the state in Sacramento and my little precious is, you know, finishing up her high school education.”
Will Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa stick around for his second term?
Cable news network CNN said Villaraigosa finally will answer that question today when he appears with Wolf Blitzer on "The Situation Room." The interview will be held just days after The Times reported that Angelenos were lukewarm on a gubernatorial bid in 2010.
The poll found that 48% of respondents did not want Villaraigosa to run for governor, compared to 42% who did and 10% who didn't commit either way.
Villaraigosa, who will appear on CNN at 1 p.m. PST, will begin his second four-year term July 1. He won re-election in March by a tepid 55% margin -- a percentage mirrored by his job approval numbers in the poll.
Some political experts believe Villaraigosa would need stronger support from his city to launch a bid for statewide office. Nearly half of the respondents to The Times' poll said the city needs to head in a direction different from the path charted by Villaraigosa.
-- David Zahniser
Photo: Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa talks during a news conference at a downtown fire station in Los Angeles. Credit: AP Photo/Richard Vogel
State regulators performed a shoddy investigation and let UCLA off too lightly for violations stemming from a chemistry lab fire that killed a staff research assistant, the victim's family contends in papers filed with Cal-OSHA and the Occupational Safety and Health Appeals Board.
Sheri Sangji, 23, suffered severe burns over 43% of her body when an experiment with air-sensitive chemicals burst into flame Dec. 29 and ignited her clothing. Sangji, who was not wearing a protective lab coat, died 18 days later.
Last month, the California Division of Occupational Safety and Health concluded that Sangji was improperly trained and not wearing protective clothing. Cal-OSHA cited UCLA for one regulatory and three "serious" violations, levying fines totaling $31,875.
UCLA paid the fines but appealed the violations and is seeking a stipulation from Cal-OSHA that it admits no fault in connection with the findings -- a legal move aimed at limiting the university's liability.
Photo: Sheri Sangji, 23, was working in a UCLA laboratory in December 2008
when she was fatally burned in a fire. She is shown at her Pomona
College graduation in May 2008. Credit: Naveen Sangli
In these tough economic times, a victory parade for the Lakers is needed more than ever, Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa said today.
“At a time when the unemployment in the city is 12.5%, and 21,000 people have lost their homes due to foreclosures, it is important for us to celebrate this great day,” Villaraigosa said in a news conference at the Lakers practice center in El Segundo.
He said some of the city’s wealthiest residents and an Indian tribe had contributed $850,000 to cover the city’s police, fire and public works costs for Wednesday’s parade, while the Lakers and Anschutz Entertainment Group, which owns Staples Center, will ante up the $1 million in production costs.
“We’re going to come together as a city at a time when we need to come together,” Villaraigosa said. “The reason why so many people from the private sector came forward is because they know this town deserves to revel in itself for a day. We need it.”
If the Lakers win the NBA championship Sunday, it’s a good bet Angelenos will want a parade.
But with cash-strapped Los Angeles looking at the possibility of laying off municipal workers or forcing them to take unpaid days off to counter a budget deficit, some at City Hall are uncomfortable with the parade’s price tag, which could exceed $1 million.
"We can’t afford to cover the costs,” Los Angeles City Councilwoman Jan Perry, whose district includes Staples Center, said this afternoon. “How could we make a decision about people’s jobs and then sponsor the parade?”
Shouldn't the Lakers and the NBA pay for that, she asked?
Council members have been wrestling for years with a proposal for reducing the size of subsidies the city gives for special events, such as street fairs and 10K runs. A new proposal to do that is pending and could receive a final vote next week.
But it would not go into effect until after the best-of-seven championship series between the Lakers and the Orlando Magic. The Lakers lead three games to one, and after Sunday's 5 p.m. tip off in Orlando it could be all over.
Representatives of Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, who is in Rhode Island at a conference, did not respond to a request for comment.
Councilman Bernard C. Parks, who heads the council’s Budget and Finance Committee, struck a more conciliatory tone, predicting that the city would ultimately absorb the cost of a parade.
A decision on whether to adopt a $271-billion spending package that will shape the transportation future of Los Angeles County over the next 30 years was postponed today by the Metropolitan Transportation Authority.
The agency’s board delayed a vote on its Long Range Transportation Plan until July 23 to give local governments and the public more time to study it and comment. Board members also wanted more time to resolve several issues, including whether timelines for projects could be accelerated.
The long-range plan includes scores of highway and transit projects that would be built using state and federal money, as well as proceeds from county sales taxes for transportation such as Measure R.
The listed projects include the Westside subway, light rail lines, bus rapid transit systems and freeway improvements. Here's the report that board members considered today. A draft of the spending package will be available online at a later date.
Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa says his relationship with KTLA News anchor/reporter Lu Parker isn't likely to play a role in whether he runs for governor.
Villaraigosa continues to field questions about the relationship two weeks after it was revealed. The mayor is considering a run for governor in 2010 and told reporters in Sacramento on Tuesday that his dating life should not be an issue.
"I don't think it's going to have any impact whatsoever," he said.
Villaraigosa has been separated from his wife for some time. When his relationship with Parker first emerged, he told reporters he had a right to a personal life as well as some level of privacy. In 2007, it was revealed that the mayor was having a relationship with another newscaster, Mirthala Salinas.
Dating Parker has been less controversial, but one political observer says it still carries some risks.
"It reminds people of naughty behavior, if you like," said Shawn Rosenberg, a professor of political science and psychology at UC Irvine, told The Times' Cathleen Decker last week. "It would have less of an impact if it didn't remind of other things."
The Los Angeles City Council voted late today to move ahead with a furlough plan that would save $100 million in employment costs but close a majority of city operations every other Friday.
While the city continues to negotiate with public employee unions in search of salary or job concessions, the council spent more than four hours behind closed doors exploring ways of scaling back city services.
Council members agreed that some services, such as trash pickup and public safety, would be shielded from furloughs. Sworn police officers would be exempted but civilian Los Angeles Police Department employees would not.
In other cases, certain departments — including libraries, parks and the Los Angeles Zoo — would not necessarily close on Fridays but would still need each of their employees to stay home one day every two weeks, Council President Eric Garcetti said.
Two days after revelations that L.A. Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa was in a relationship with KTLA News anchor Lu Parker, reporters were still peppering the mayor with questions about his personal life.
Tuesday, Villaraigosa told reporters that he had a right to a personal life and a right to some level of privacy. Today, the mayor told reporters at a news conference that the relationship would have no bearing on his upcoming decision on whether to run for governor.
Villaraigosa is seen as one of three leading candidates in the Democratic Party, likely to face San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom and state Atty. Gen. Jerry Brown if he runs. According to an account from the Associated Press, the mayor also questioned whether voters really care about whom he dates:
At a City Hall news conference, the Democratic mayor said the public has scant interest in his personal life and his decision on entering the 2010 contest to replace Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger “will have nothing to do with any of that.” “My decision will be about one thing -- where I can better serve the people of the city and the people of the state,” Villaraigosa said. He laughed off a question about whether he was in love. “I love life,” he said in response to a reporter’s question.
When it was revealed two years ago that the mayor was having a relationship with TV newscaster Mirthala Salinas, Villaraigosa faced media questions about it for several weeks.
The KTLA Traffic Blog provides regular updates of the Southern California traffic situation during the morning drive. This feed is live from 4 to 10 a.m. Monday through Friday.
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