PERSPECTIVE - Was Mayor Villaraigosa sandbagging us when he backed the sales tax increase?
He was in possession of information that would have doomed Proposition A before election day, but deliberately avoided sharing it with the public. It is probably fair to say Council President Wesson also knew that revenue forecasts were better than expected. The net effect, if the projection pans out, will reduce the expected deficit of over $200 million by half.
I assume Chief Beck was clueless – an easy assumption to make.
It would have been good information to disclose to the voters. Disclosure, whether it is related to government or the private sector, isn’t just anything…it is everything.
It is obvious that the mayor or Wesson wanted Prop A to pass without the benefit of transparency.
The talk of cutting 500 cops was a lie.
So, will the remaining six candidates for citywide offices dare to call out Villaraigosa and Wesson for their charade? Trying to hoodwink the public is bad enough, but it has happened before with trash fee hikes that were supposed to fund more police, but did not.
I don’t expect they will.
Villaraigosa’s endorsement still carries some weight. The last thing any of the six want to do is offend the mayor.
What’s that? An endorsement by a liar carries weight?
In this town, yes.
Between the 84% who don’t care enough to vote and much of the 16% who are too ignorant or uninformed to cast an intelligent vote, Los Angeles is fertile ground for deceit.
If Garcetti, Greuel, Zine, Galperin, Feuer or Trutanich believe transparency is more than a word, they will point a finger at the mayor and his cheerleader occupying the top seat in the City Council. They will call them out for deliberately misleading the voters.
If they fail to so, they will be sanctioning dishonesty. Silence will speak volumes about their own character.
(Paul Hatfield is a CPA and serves as Treasurer for the Neighborhood Council Valley Village. He blogs at Village to Village, contributes to CityWatch and can be reached at: [email protected]) –cw
CityWatch
Vol 11 Issue 22
Pub: Mar 15, 2013
