L.A. Weekly Reads My Mind With Article About Mayor Tony Villar
An incredibly well-researched article appeared in this weeks’ L.A. Weekly newspaper. Reporter Patrick Range McDonald covered all the bases on why Tony Villar is a terrible mayor for Los Angeles. I have thought many of the things that Mr. McDonald writes about, but never been able to put my thoughts into words, and certainly never been able to conduct the research that Mr. McDonald did in writing his lengthly piece for the L.A. Weekly.
Mr. McDonald also wrote a sidebar “How Mayor Villaraigosa Spends His 16-Hour Days” that analyzes the actual redacted Mayor’s schedule covering approximately 900 hours from May 21 to August 1 that was made available to LA Weekly via California Public Records Act request,
Here are some of my favorite paragraphs and quotes from Mr. Mcdonald’s article- consider this the “Cliffs Notes” version if you do not want to read the entire 7+ pages:
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Los Angeles’ mayor has not yet produced any results in improving schools, addressing greatly worsening traffic, keeping kids from joining gangs, cleaning the city’s infamously filthy sidewalks, halting patently illegal clutter like 10-story building ads and thousands of illicitly constructed billboards, or controlling his spending in a time of family belt-tightening. Since May of 2007, when a negative profile in The New Yorker, citing his “single-minded ambition” and “drive for self-aggrandizement,” shattered his press honeymoon and made his local media coverage look parochial and protective, Villaraigosa has been slammed for wrecking his marriage and has backed the wrong horse for president.
Yet his latest work schedule, from May 21 to August 1, which L.A. Weekly obtained from his office through a California Public Records Act request, shows the man has a peculiar way of using that time — which works out to 13 hours, not 16 or 18 per day. The document reveals that the mayor spends most of his working day flying in and out of town, holding staged press conferences, attending banquets, ceremonies and parties, raising political money and providing face time to high-powered special interest groups in a position to help his political advancement
The last time Los Angeles had a mayor like Villaraigosa, so focused on the glitzy trappings of the job, and so distant from the sometimes dreary work inside City Hall, was when an aging Tom Bradley held the post in the early 1990s. In his final four years in office, Bradley was widely viewed as a political burnout who had overstayed his welcome — he ended up using his position in those final years to attend a seemingly endless series of ribbon-cuttings, awards banquets and dinner parties.
During the 10 weeks reviewed by the Weekly, Villaraigosa virtually shut out the two most active groups representing the broad middle class, which is waging boisterous quality-of-life battles on traffic and overdevelopment: homeowners associations and the city’s 88 neighborhood councils.
His partially blacked-out trips to Israel, Miami, Hawaii, London, New York City, Chicago, Oakland, San Diego, Washington, D.C., and San Francisco soaked up 310 hours, or 34 percent of his workload. Among those hours, he held fund-raising events in four other cities to raise cash for his 2009 mayoral bid, and took a red-eye flight on July 7 to Washington, D.C., to introduce Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama at the League of United Latin American Citizens’ annual convention. His other heavily blacked-out events, which the Weekly has learned include 14 fund-raisers, accounted for 186 hours, or 21 percent of his workload.
Together, then, the mayor spent 804 hours, or 89 percent of his work schedule, on ceremonial/PR, travel, blacked-out activities, gap time, fund-raising, personal issues and undisclosed “security” issues. On direct city business — such as signing legislation and meeting with city-department heads — his schedule shows the mayor spent 11 percent of his time.
“He’s clearly enamored of running with an elite crowd. … You have this poor kid from L.A., and he’s living the life of a rich celebrity. It’s a narcotic, especially in this town.” - Ron Kaye, the former editor of the Daily News
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You should check out the 36+ comments that have been made to the article by readers. They clearly show that I am not alone in my thoughts on Villar. Here’s one that struck a chord with me as the animal lover that I am:
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“I’m Antonio,” he cooed to me at a festival where I was manning a booth dedicated to getting the (then three) LA Zoo elephants into elephant sanctuaries. He said to my and my colleague’s faces, “I’m on your side,” and proceeded to instruct us on political strategy.
Two elephant deaths later, another having bounced across the country and finally sent to a sanctuary, now the last elephant, Billy, languishies out of sight, rocking compulsively from the stress of being warehoused alone.
Tens of millions of dollars are being squandered on a larger space so more elephants can be captive at the LA Zoo. It’s not too late to stop the boondoogle.
Call your councilperson. Demand Billy’s release to a sanctuary and a stop to the new exhibit area.
Villaraigosa is one smooth, debonair liar. He won’t be believed next time he declares he’s for the animals.
Comment by Holland from South Pasadena on Sep 12th, 2008, 00:16 am ===============================================================