Garcetti Explores Mayoral Bid, Garage Vote at Community Meeting
The Los Angeles City Council president is "seriously leaning" toward running for mayor, he said in a Westwood Community Council meeting Tuesday.
Speaking to a community group, Los Angeles City Council President Eric Garcetti said the city council made the right call last week to explore long term leases on the city's nine parking garages, including the 3,000-space Hollywood and Highland garage.
Garcetti spoke Tuesday night to the Westwood Community Council in Westwood. Garcetti, who represents much of Hollywood, received a cordial reception from the WCC, but members spoke out against the decision at last week's city council meeting presided over by Garcetti.
Garcetti also acknowledged he is "seriously leaning" towards running for mayor and will announce a decision in the next six to eight months after talking it over with his family, he said after fielding questions on the garage vote and other topics for over an hour.
"The earlier I say yes, the harder it will be for me to govern in my current role," Garcetti said of the position he's held for the past 2 1/2 years. He is the longest-serving councilmember, with 10 years on the panel.
On the topic of garages, Garcetti said the challenge in any parking deal is to protect economic development while also safeguarding city services.
"We've already cut to the bone," Garcetti said several times in defending the need to explore alternatives to further cuts in order to balance the city's budget.
Although he doesn't want to cut more jobs or services, he said unionized city workers and their leaders need to be mindful of sharing in the sacrifices through potentially other means like paying for part of their health care costs or modifying generous pension deals.
Westwood's concerns are shared with his Hollywood district, Garcetti said. Sixty-two percent of the total spaces are in Hollywood, with 40 percent in the Hollywood and Highland garage alone.
He also sought to allay fears the garage deal—which would hand over management and revenue for the city's garages for the next 50 years to private operators—was a fait accompli.
"This is not at all inevitable. We are in exploratory phase," Garcetti said.
"We need to do a deal that protects city services. We can't be desperate for a deal if the money isn't right. And we need to protect the business community. If we can't do all three then I'm not voting for it," he said.
Although numerous WCC members were openly skeptical of the wisdom of last week's parking garage vote, afterwards expressed thanks that Garcetti chose to address the group and said they were impressed with his remarks.
"He had nice things to say. It's great he came out on such short notice to speak with us and hear our ideas," said board member Carole Magnuson.
Scott Zwartz
5:50 pm on Friday, January 21, 2011
The city needs to have the FBI conduct an investigation of its CRA and of Councilmember Gracetti in particular, especially the VineGate project at 1601 N Vine where he duped the city council into paying an extra $1.4 M ($5.45 M when it was worth only $4.M) to his friend and then in 2010 Garcetti proposed to sell that same piece of property back to the developer for only $825,000.00.
As Angelenos are learning the cycle of corrupt money in LA is CRA to developers, Developers to Councilmember, Councilmembers approve CRA projects which provide more tax dollars for the CRA to give to the developers who support to the councilmembers.
Yuval Kremer
1:59 am on Saturday, January 22, 2011
Wikipedia says:
"He succeeded Alex Padilla as [Council] President of the City Council on January 1, 2006 and was re-elected as President at the beginning of the Council's subsequent terms in 2007 and 2009."
His bio on the Council District 13 website says:
"Unanimously elected as Council President in December 2005 and unanimously re-elected in July 2007 and July 2009, Garcetti promotes the work of each of his fourteen colleagues on the City Council."
By my count, he's been Council President for more than 5 years, which makes him very responsible for years of bad decisions by the City, since he controls who serves on the council's committees (like the PLUM committee) and he presides over full council meetings.
As for him being the "longest-serving councilmember, with 10 years on the panel", all the odd-numbered district councilmembers are voted for in the same election, and Ed Reyes (CD1), Dennis Zine (CD3), Jan Perry (CD9), and Janice Hahn (CD15) all came onto the council in 2001 with Eric, per Wikipedia, which is why the Council voted to put Measure R (the scam that Eric promoted as "ethics reform") on the November 2006 ballot (so they could all get a 3rd four year term...otherwise they all would have had to get off the council and run for a new job in early 2009). Even the indicted Richard AlarCON (CD7), who has been on the council from 93-98 and 07-present (broken up by stints in the state assembly and state senate) has served for almost as long...so what !
Maria
3:34 am on Tuesday, January 25, 2011
We must make it our task to defeat a Garcetti run for Mayor.
While Eric has more intelligence in his well-coiffed hair follicles than Tony the Villar has in his entire gene pool, Eric suffers terribly from a belief that he is better than and smarter than everyone in the room.
To this end, Eric has supported horrible policies such as using the CRA in Hollywood as a slush fund to reward wealthy developer friends by sucking the tax increment out of basic City/County services and our schools. The impact of these tax losses to our local communities are huge. And in turn, these disgusting "human" beings who develop huge, towering, crap projects tarted up with the urban blight of supergraphic signs, return the favor by lining Garcetti's campaign coffers and various slush funds known as the Officeholder Account and the Hollywood Traffic Mitigation Fund. It's a comfortable, if ethically challenged lifestyle that must be ended by the people.
As President, Eric should have promoted openness and transparency. The exact opposite continues under his supervision of City Council meetings. Key documents and reports on controversial items are held back from the public until the last minute. 24 hour meeting notices that violate the law are used instead of simply giving the public a consistent 72 hour notice on each meeting agenda posted by the City Council and its committees under Garcetti's supervision.
Eric has become part of the problem instead of part of the solution.