FOLLOW me on my popular Twitter feed. Just click this photo! @hbbtruth - David - Common sense on #Politics #PublicPolicy #Sports #PopCulture in USA, Great Britain, Sweden and France, via my life in #Texas #Memphis #Miami #IU #Chicago #DC #FL 🛫🌍📺📽️🏈. Photo is of Elvis and Joan Blackman in 'Blue Hawaii'

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Showing posts with label Eric Garcetti. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Eric Garcetti. Show all posts

Thursday, October 24, 2013

#OpenGov, #OpenData and meaningful government reform finally hits Los Angeles via Control Panel L.A., a powerful website that opens city finances to quick, easy online public scrutiny, with extensive detail on how City Hall collects and spends billions of tax dollars; Plus, there's an expanded version of CompStat to track neighborhood problems online; Dear Santa... I want THAT!

#OpenGov, #OpenData and meaningful government reform finally hits Los Angeles via Control Panel L.A., a powerful website that opens city finances to quick, easy online public scrutiny, with extensive detail on how City Hall collects and spends billions of tax dollars; Plus, there's an expanded version of CompStat to track neighborhood problems online; Dear Santa... I want THAT!















Los Angeles Times
L.A. controller unveils website to make city finances more transparent
The website gives the public access to a huge volume of data on taxpayer expenditures for police, sanitation, street repairs and other services.
By Michael Finnegan and Ben Welsh
October 24, 2013
Los Angeles' new controller moved Wednesday to open city finances to quick and easy public scrutiny online, unveiling a website with extensive detail on how City Hall collects and spends billions of dollars.
The website, Control Panel L.A., gives users access to a huge volume of data on taxpayer expenditures for police, sanitation, street repairs and other services — information that previously would have taken weeks or months to get through formal requests for records.
Read the rest of the article at
http://www.latimes.com/local/la-me-1024-city-opens-books-20131024,0,3215790.story#axzz2ifPH4BOe
While Los Angeles slowly marches forward towards the digital future via their Control Panel L.A., https://controllerdata.lacity.org/ we in South Florida can only look longingly at this sort of practical and common sense tool from a great distance and sigh wistfully...

And here's another transparency effort, building upon the successful use of CompStat by LAPD that will be the first major initiative of Mayor Eric Garcetti, who took office in June, which will track progress on goals from neighborhood concerns like pot hole to streetlight repair, on a computer system that residents can check online.


Mayor Garcetti Unveils First Major Initiative: Online Accountability Plan September 26, 2013 10:41 PM
http://losangeles.cbslocal.com/2013/09/26/mayor-garcetti-unveils-first-major-initiative-online-accountability-plan/

More on the effort to gets the facts and figures into the hands of taxpayers..

caforward YouTube Channel video: L.A. City Controller's plans for a more efficient, accessible city hall
"Los Angeles is one of the oldest cities in California. The City is rich with history. A lot of that history lays within City hall, with the data and information to tell a story. The City of Angels is also the most populous city in the state, with more than 3.7 million people. You'd think a city this large and this old would be at the forefront of technology. Well it's just the opposite. California Forward had the opportunity to sit down with the newly elected L.A. City Controller, Ron Galperin. He took office on July 1, 2013, as the 20th Controller. With less than two months under his belt, the Contoller explains his big plans to transform city hall."
Two-part interview. Uploaded August 27, 2013 http://youtu.be/95GoouHZTso

One on One with Los Angeles City Controller Ron Galperin
Uploaded September 3, 2013. http://youtu.be/I1idK1OuwTI


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Sunday, August 18, 2013

Run-amok govt. gravy train in Los Angeles and corresponding lack of common sense in public policy; Steve Lopez of LA Times positively owns story re LA taxpayers angry about $$$ spigot at city's Dept. of Water and Power. City officials upset re proposed new contract under which employees still WON'T have to contribute a cent towards their own healthcare costs.; DWP's unlimited sick pay policy has cost LA taxpayers $35.5 Million since 2010 for extra days off that AREN'T covered by the agency's 10-day cap; New LA mayor Eric Garcetti has a "back to basics" plan but will city council and unions just ignore it?






"I don't have more pockets for you guys to dip into to get more money for rate increases..."
Los Angeles Times
Angry about the money spigot at L.A.'s Department of Water and Power
City officials get an earful from residents upset about proposed new contract under which employees still won't have to contribute toward healthcare costs.
By Steve Lopez
August 17, 2013, 12:00 p.m.
Ordinarily, I don't spend more than an hour or so at a time in Los Angeles City Hall. I get in and out of there, quick as a burglar, to avoid having my judgment impaired.
I thought longingly about that approach on Friday, when I attended a windy public hearing on a proposed new contract for employees of the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power. For the first two hours, public officials explained the contract, in mostly rosy terms.
It wasn't perfect, they said, but pretty good. 
Well, I guess I don't have to tell you that lots of concerned LA taxpayers had a different idea, right?
Read the rest of the column at:
http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-0818-lopez-dwp-20130818,0,3154788.column



Los Angeles Times
Costly perk forces DWP to shell out extra if it gives work to outside contractors
Overtime clause hikes the department's costs for hiring contractors.
By Jack Dolan
August 15, 2013, 6:44 p.m.
It's no secret Los Angeles Department of Water and Power employees are paid well. But a little-known clause in their union contract ensures they can work extra hours and collect even higher wages when private contractors are hired to help them get the job done.
The so-called "outsourcing bonus" traces back to a single sentence inserted into the city-owned utility's labor contract nearly two decades ago. Intended partly to discourage use of private companies with lower labor costs, the contract provision requires DWP managers to offer overtime to any employee who could have performed tasks assigned to a contractor — such as engineering, construction or clerical work. 

Read the rest of the article at:
http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-dwp-bonus-20130815,0,1495706.story











Los Angeles Times 
DWP's unlimited sick pay policy costs millions
The L.A. utility has paid $35.5 million since 2010 for extra days off that aren't covered by the agency's 10-day cap.
By Jack Dolan
July 26, 2013, 5:00 a.m.
Los Angeles' Department of Water and Power has paid thousands of employees a total of $35.5 million since 2010 in extra sick days under an unusual program that the utility's top executive acknowledges has been vulnerable to abuse.
DWP employees benefit from a 32-year-old policy that allows them to take paid days off well beyond the agency's 10-day-a-year cap on sick days. Last year, 10% of the department's roughly 10,000 employees took at least 10 extra days off, the data show. More than 220 took an extra 20 working days off, or about a month, according to a Times examination of data obtained under the California Public Records Act. 

Read the rest of the article at:
http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-dwp-sick-20130726,0,889920,full.story

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Steve Lopez LA Times  @LATstevelopez  https://twitter.com/LATstevelopez

 Jack Dolan  @jackdolanLAT  https://twitter.com/jackdolanLAT

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Monday, May 20, 2013

Election Day tomorrow will give Los Angeles voters either their first woman or first elected Jewish mayor, in Wendy Gruel or Eric Garcetti. Garcetti has the LA Times endorsement, a 7-point lead and counts seriously attacking traffic as one of three most-important tasks at hand; Is there someone like Hallandale Beach's Dr. Deborah Brown in Los Angeles, someone who will walk up to volunteer campaign workers of someone she doesn't support and tell them and anyone around them that their candidate is "the devil"? Like she did in HB last year. If you know, let me know!


KCAL news video: Latest USC Price/LA Times poll shows Eric Garcetti with seven point lead over Wendy Gruel in LA Mayoral race, with 11 percent of voters still undecided.

As Election Day in the U.S.'s second-largest city looms tomorrow, and Los Angeles voters getting either its first woman or first elected Jewish mayor, Eric Garcetti and Wendy Gruel have spent the last days of their hard-fought campaign battling for Black voters and for the favor of fickle Undecideds, who like being fussed over, but who find it hard to commit.
Just like Hollywood's central casting.

 It all makes me wonder if any of the middle-class Los Angeles neighborhoods where my SoCal friends live have someone like Hallandale Beach's Dr. Deborah Brown living amongst them.

 Someone with strong connection to the City Hall teat and powers-that-be, in her case, to mayor Joy Cooper, and who has no qualms about showing up at polling sites and boldly walking up to volunteer election workers of candidates she doesn't support, and just a few inches from these campaign workers faces, loudly proclaim that their preferred candidate is "the devil." 

 You know, like she did repeatedly in Hallandale Beach last year at the city's Ingalls Park precincts on the city's SW side, to volunteer supporters of HB mayoral candidate Keith London?

 Yes, that would be the same Dr. Brown I've written about here on the blog before with the curious -and which some in the community would say borders on fictitious- loan and grant applications that give the appearance that her group was/is a non-profit when the IRS says differently.
The very same Dr. Brown whom the Office of the Broward Inspector General wrote about in their damning final report a few short weeks ago.
Allegations she used money her group was given by the city for purposes for which it was NOT intended, like, well, let's just say unethical conduct and let you read it yourself.

But then again, having received money for years from City Hall, including many large grants just under $25,000 from former HB City Manager Mike Good, she already knew from experience that city officials would never check on what she did with CRA funds, that since as the IG report says, they DIDN'T. 
Yes, no double-checking information or accountability from the city before the vote and zero after the money is dispensed.
Excerpt from March 6, 2013 Broward Bulldog
http://www.browardbulldog.org/2013/03/broward-inspector-general-slams-hallandale-for-gross-mismanagement-of-cra-funds/
The final report will recommend to the county that it look over its legal options “to prevent the ongoing abuse of the CRA process and recover those funds that may have been misspent,” the preliminary report says.
In Hallandale, there was an apparent lack of regular monitoring by the CRA of who got its funds and how that money was spent.
In one case, the report says, a nonprofit grant recipient spent nearly $5,000 in funds to make a payment on her time-share at the Westgate Resort in Orlando, make payroll payments to herself and her brother and on other things.
“We found probable cause to believe that Dr. Deborah Brown, the founder and director of the Palms Center for the Arts (PCA), engaged in criminal misconduct in the handling of a $5,000 award the PCA received from the CRA,” the report says.
Brown could not be reached for comment Tuesday night.
The matter has been referred to the sheriff’s office and the Broward State Attorney for prosecution.


 The reason I ask is because I've been closely following the back-and-forth of the Garcetti-Gruel campaigns the past few weeks via videos on various LA TV station websites and the LA Times and... well, there's a lot that needs fixing in LA no matter who actually wins, because many voters have just about reached their limit on govt. waste and inefficiency and cronyism.  

 I ask because I had breakfast on Sunday morning yesterday with a friend of mine who, like me, had supported Hb City Commissioner Keith London against longtime incumbent mayor Joy Cooper.
But unlike me, he's a longtime HB resident, so someone with even more perspective than my nine years of living here and seeing the chaos and dysfunction up-close.

While I was flitting about with materials and messages from one election site throughout Hallandale Beach to another on Election Day for Keith, and my friend Csaba Kulin and Michele Lazarow, who were running for the City Commission, my Sunday morning tablemate was working the crowds of HB residents arriving to vote at Ingalls Park in southwest HB, just one block south of Hallandale Beach Blvd.

(Yes, as some of you long-time readers of the blog may recall, that also the place where the City of Hallandale Beach used to have its recycling site. The one that had no directional signs on nearby streets, much less, on main drag HBB, letting people know exactly where it was. Now the city foolishly has no central recycling site for residents to use even while much of the city lives in places where recycling something other than newspapers simply doesn't take place, due to the city's apathy, like smaller condos and apts. As usual, the city seems clueless what to do to capture that market, despite how obvious it is. For starters, you make it as easy as possible.)

If any of my friends in LA know who Dr. Brown's counterpart in LA might be, or even have seen media reports about the activities of such a doppelgänger, please drop me a line and share the 411.
View more videos at: http://nbclosangeles.com.
Garcetti: "Enthusiasm" High Day Before Election. NBC4 new video: reporter  Toni Guinyard speaks with mayoral candidate Eric Garcetti on NBC4's "Today in LA" May 20, 2013.
Visit NBCNews.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Los Angeles Times
Greuel, Garcetti court black voters on final weekend
By James Rainey and Seema Mehta 
May 19, 2013 8:09 p.m.

Polls show Garcetti ahead but Greuel favored among African Americans. The winner will be either the first woman or the first elected Jewish leader in the mayor's office.
http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-mayor-daily-20130520,0,2746694.story

 The LA Times endorsement of Eric Garcetti from February 17th, for the primary, was leagues ahead of the sort of thing you ever read in South Florida newspapers, both in terms of length and in gravitas.

 Titled, Eric Garcetti for mayor He's the candidate with the most potential to rise to the occasion and lead Los Angeles out of its current malaise and into a more sustainable and confident future," it concluded with this:
Voters at first embraced Villaraigosa because they saw in him the power to inspire. Garcetti has that too, but in a different, quieter fashion, and he backs it up with experience in City Hall, a share of troublesome mistakes and 12 years of achievement. If he avoids a tendency to be glib when he should motivate, and if he avoids the tendency to allow his finesse to give way to a desire to be all things to all people, he could be just what Los Angeles needs. At this time, out of this field, he's the best choice for mayor.
Now that's how you write and end a persuasive editorial!
http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/endorsements/la-ed-end-0217-mayor-20130215,0,7012293.story

 KCAL/CBS LA News video, Profile of LA mayoral candidate Eric Garcetti
February 28, 2013 8:16 AM
http://losangeles.cbslocal.com/2013/02/28/la-mayoral-election-preview-eric-garcetti/

 The above profile includes the following nugget:
But perhaps Garcetti’s most ambitious goal is to tackle the city’s notorious traffic problems.
“We have to reduce our traffic in Los Angeles. And I want to see five different rail finished or well underway by the time I leave office,” he said. “It’s the only way we will be able to get enough people out of cars to be able to really make a dent in the traffic that is choking our lives.”
Tuesday night you might want to be watching here to see LIVE election results
http://losangeles.cbslocal.com/live-video/
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