EDUCATION POLITICS-On March 7, 2017, Los Angeles will play a duplicate round of last November’s presidential election, and we’ll have the opportunity to trump last year’s presidential fiasco. 

Since January 20, the billionaires have displayed a dummy hand of hubris, lies and slander. That is, the same hand playing out right now in D.C., is being played right here in LA by multi-millionaire, former-mayor Dick Riordan. It’s the choice of the monied-1%, the champions a dystopian DeVos-flavored future devoid of truly accountable or equitable public education. 

In contrast, our path of Resistance steps neatly across the millions of dollars employed to hobble Steve Zimmer’s people-responsive, and people-powered policies. You vote to resist deep-pocketed, super-wealthy, 1%-politics when you vote in March for LAUSD School Board District 4’s incumbent, Steve Zimmer. 

These are some issues to consider when reviewing the leaflets and innumerable forums and conversations littering the landscape: 

1) A school’s “chartering” agency is tasked with its oversight. That means assuring its policies and operations are truly accountable to the public; that means assuring all the public is served, and not just some of it. 

At the same time there is inherent tension between any special interest and its regulators, even not-for-profit Charters. 

So what will a school-regulatory system look like when it is governed by electeds who are financed by Charter partisans such as the CA Charter Schools Association and private equity education-sector investors? 

Two of Steve Zimmer’s challengers are beholden financially to precisely such groups and individuals vested in the special-interests of Charter Schools. 

But Steve Zimmer is not. 

So who will be free of bias to regulate these schools in the best interests of all our public school children? 

2) A school board is concerned with ideology; its superintendent and staff with operations and realizing policy. 

LAUSD’s expensive escapades with technology-driven chicanery were coaxed by LAUSD staff, approved and overseen by its board. It’s an intimate tango to be sure, but the original sin lies in the folly of its architect and engineers, not the signal operators. 

The financial underwriters of the creative team choreographing LAUSD iPad ignominy were Eli Broad and his allied billionaires. John Deasy was their impresario, hand-picked to lead LAUSD. And it was the leadership of Mónica Garcia that orchestrated board approval and oversight of Deasy’s debacle; Eli Broad’s billions supported both Deasy and Garcia. 

Deasy is long-gone but his operations remain under legal scrutiny. Garcia is displaced as board president yet her role as promoter of Deasy’s technology-agenda is unchallenged and her mantle as Broad’s acolyte uncensored. 

Fast-forward to March’s school board election where three candidates benefit directly from Broad and his allies’ wherewithal. Two would tar Zimmer falsely with exclusive blame for the iPads via mailers from Independent Expenditure Committees of the 1%, while the third – Garcia – actually was the scheme’s chief champion. Taxpayer accountability should swamp all three. 

3) Broad’s wealthy billionaire-class underwrites and motivates a central stalking-horse of “Education ®eform”: to disintegrate that core of the teaching profession, its professional teachers. 

As financiers of the defeated Vergara v California, the lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of five statues “protecting” classroom teachers, Education-®eforming industry titans seek to circumvent this judgment through elections. By supporting a plaintiff’s witness for LAUSD school board, a defendant would be transformed to plaintiff; the LAUSD itself would accuse its very own constituent teachers. 

This trojan-horse strategy could inflict widespread collateral damage on business-labor relations, tilting the advantage toward those billionaires whose special interests are advanced in supporting their candidate’s role-reversal. 

Obligated by financial support and legal testimony, such a board member’s fealty would be inherently compromised. These candidates are unqualified, in the paradigm of Rick Perry who would shutter the department he is appointed to run, or Steve Mnuchin who would abolish all populist protections governing his department of Treasury. 

Consider how these three issues support the billionaires’ latter-day agenda for a privatized America.

Resisting the will of the 1% means transcribing the will of the 99% onto ballots. 

Listen carefully to the underlying agenda of transformative candidates: reconstitution is not necessarily constructive or progressive. 

Vote for Steve Zimmer and Resist Trumpism.

(Sara Roos is a politically active resident of Mar Vista, a biostatistician, the parent of two teenaged LAUSD students and a CityWatch contributor, who blogs at redqueeninla.com) Edited for CityWatch by Linda Abrams.

BACKTALK—(Editor’s Note: This is a response to Jack Humphreville’s CityWatch article ‘La Kretz Innovation Center: A Pay to Play Pet Project’).  I am the Co-Founder and CEO of the Los Angeles Cleantech Incubator (LACI), the primary tenant of the La Kretz Innovation Campus (LKIC).   I can’t speak to the primary thesis of your article on the LKIC – that somehow the LKIC campus is some kind of quid pro quo for Mr. La Kretz’s Hollywood development – but I can speak to some of your points regarding the Campus.

1) The La Kretz Innovation Campus is not a “pet” project of Mayor Garcetti nor Councilmember Huizar.   The project was envisioned by Mayor Villaraigosa in 2008 and the campus was purchased in 2010.  LACI was born in 2011 and is part of a comprehensive plan to build a green economy for the City of Los Angeles.  To describe it as a pet project denigrates the thinking, hard work and commitment of dozens of people who have devoted themselves to helping Los Angeles become a green technology leader.

2) The LADWP was not “forced” to invest in this project as the Department has been a leading proponent of the work we do at LACI and the Campus that supports our work.  You may not be familiar with the requirements of AB32, which makes State utilities seek new sources of sustainable energy for generation, but LACI/LKIC is one of many initiatives that the Department is undertaking to meet these challenging requirements.

3) You note a City Council motion by Councilmenber Huizar to periodically report on the progress of LKIC.  For perspective, we continuously provide metrics to various departments of the City that monitor the progress of LACI and (now) the LKIC campus.  A few key highlights: 

1. LACI has generated over $270million dollars in long-term economic value for the City of Los Angeles including more than 1200 direct and indirect jobs.
2. LACI has helped 100 clean technology start-ups locate and prosper in the Los Angeles area.  Our companies have attracted more than $115 million in investment capital and filed over 200 patents.

4) You point out that LADWP has invested about $20M (it’s actually closer to $18M) and that its real estate investment should be closely evaluated.  I think this misses the point of LKIC – it’s not a real estate play but an economic development initiative – whose mission is to help develop family supporting jobs for the citizens of Los Angeles.  Yet, if one were to evaluate LKIC strictly from a real estate perspective, one would find that LADWP has leveraged its investment by more than 2:1; that it now owns a large piece of property in the fastest growing part of Los Angeles; and that it could sell this property tomorrow for a very sizeable profit.

Taking a step back, I would like to editorialize a bit myself on the importance of making the City of Los Angeles a cleantech innovation center, thus building a huge green economy for the City of Los Angeles and the role that LACI/LKIC play in this effort.

As background, the clean technology business sector has been the fastest growing sector on the face of the earth for the past five years, growing more than 25% annually.  Most experts predict continued growth for decades to come.  Frankly, we want to grab more than our fair share of this new business growth for Los Angeles’ citizens, thus providing long term job creation.   Not only are these higher paying jobs, but research shows that 1 out of 4 cleantech jobs are manufacturing jobs vs. 1 out of 9 in non-cleantech.  Building a huge green economy for LA will rebuild Los Angeles’ industrial base in tomorrow’s fastest growing industry.   In my way of thinking, this isn’t an optional extra pet project but a critically important long term initiative for Los Angeles.

Creating companies that have innovative clean technologies and helping them get to market is the most important component of expanding this embryonic market.  Cities that create an environment that nurtures these companies will reap long term rewards.  Think Silicon Valley.  Think San Diego’s biotech hub.   Think Boston’s Route 128 technology corridor. And this is exactly what the Los Angeles Cleantech Incubator does at its La Kretz Innovation Campus.  We help create innovative start-ups.

 How do we do that?  Well yes, we provide under-market priced real estate to our Portfolio Companies because these companies can’t afford market rates in Los Angeles. (they will simply go elsewhere if they can’t afford to do business here).  But, the heart of our efforts to help these companies is to provide them with seasoned, experienced coaching by successful entrepreneurs and -- once they’re ready – we introduce them to people/companies that might help them.  For example, right across the hall from where these companies are seated is the LADWP energy and water efficiency test and certification R&D labs.  This accelerates the growth of our Los Angeles-based start-ups by providing easy access to a leading utility’s R&D lab.  Nowhere else in the country – and perhaps the world – is there such close cooperation between innovators and utility engineers than at LKIC.

I have given close to six years of my life to this project because I believe it represents the future for Los Angeles.  I urge you and your readers to not only support this effort, but to encourage the City of Los Angeles to double-down on its investment.  It will pay off in ways unimaginable.

 (Fred Walti is the founder and chairman of the Los Angeles Cleantech Incubator.)

-cw

PLATKIN ON PLANNING-Mr. Mayor, other than reelection, you have a tough assignment, and it is much more than finding unusual photo ops. You are the mayor of the second largest city in the United States, and one of our planet’s creative capitals. Los Angeles’ population is approaching 4,000,000 people, and 2,000,000 work in Los Angeles. City Hall has a work force of 50,000 employees and an annual budget of at least $9 billion. It covers over 550 square miles, and has the largest and most congested street system in the United States. (Photo above: Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti.) 

This is why the public – knowing your fine education, extensive political connections, and obvious hopes for higher office – wants you to lead. They don’t want a Mayor who just echoes the talking points of financial backers from the real estate sector, as you did last week at an anti-Measure S press conference.  

This is when you became the lead mouthpiece for some of the major real estate players that the Los Angeles Times exposed as engaging in soft-corruption.  According to the Times, these companies engage in City Hall pay-to-play to obtain spot-zones and spot-General Plan Amendments for their unplanned mega-projects. 

As I review your comments, it boils down to a basic claim. A deregulated private market can do a better job in addressing such pressing issues as homelessness and high rents than preparing, adopting, implementing, following, and updating a carefully prepared and monitored General Plan. 

Mr. Mayor, when you return from you photo-ops, just look at that Los Angeles that will be maintained if your advocacy against Measure S prevails. All the dire things you predict with a Measure S victory are already widespread in today’s Los Angeles. Your case that conditions will get better by maintaining the status quo is just not credible. The evidence is right in front of us. We only need to look at nearby cities with current General Plans that they adhere to, like Pasadena and Santa Monica. Without the spot-zone changes and spot-plan amendments stopped by Measure S, these cities demonstrate that good planning can address a housing crisis, a well-maintained infrastructure, and robust economic activity. They have no need to give away the store in exchange for handouts from developers. 

Now, let’s get into the specifics of the Chicken Little sky-is-falling claims about Measure S. 

1) No, Mr. Mayor, Measure S does not stop housing construction. 

Nearly all housing, including apartments, in Los Angeles is built by-right. It does not require a spot-zone change or spot-General Plan Amendment from the ever-obliging City Council. The projects requiring these special City Council ordinances, like the Caruso project on LaCienega, are a small percentage of residential construction projects. 

The underlying problem is that because of economic inequality, few people can afford the rents of these new apartments, especially the luxury ones that Measure S opponents, like you, so venerate. There is also no evidence that a glut of luxury units, which is already happening in Downtown Los Angeles, cause landlords of less expensive apartments to lower their rents to make them affordable for the rest of the public.

This is because the "free" market will never build more than a minuscule amount of affordable housing through programs to privatize affordable housing, like SB 1818 (density bonus). The real way to expand the supply of affordable housing is for the public sector to build affordable housing, and that requires government programs, such as Measure HHH, an approach consistent with Measure S.

2) No Mr. Mayor, Los Angeles is not on verge of a population boom and must therefore open the floodgates to unplanned luxury apartment construction. 

The General Plan Framework, and the City's population prediction was 500,000 people too high. At present, LA has 3.9 million people, and it is only growing by about 10-20,000 people per year. It is doubtful LA will even reach the 2010 figure by 2050. 

The Framework and the prior AB 283 project also concluded that LA could reach a population of 8 million residents based on existing zoning. This clearly means that LA’s existing zones and plans do not present any barriers to (legal) housing construction.

3) No. Mr. Mayor, Los Angeles does not have a shortage of lots whose plan designations and zones permit apartment construction. 

If or when LA reaches the Framework’s demographic forecast, the city will have more than enough existing zoning to accommodate that population. Los Angeles has no need for the spot-zones and spot-plans you champion. For example, every commercially zoned parcel in Los Angeles already allows R-4 apartment houses. This means that all of LA's long commercial corridors, such as Vermont, Van Nuys, Pico, and Washington, could accommodate three story apartment buildings, including optional ground floor retail. They would not require any zone changes or plan amendments. And with SB 1818 incentives, these new buildings could incorporate four or five stories of apartments.

4) No Mr. Mayor, Measure S does not stop high density housing at subway stations. 

For example, on Wilshire Boulevard, where METRO is constructing the Purple Line Extension, existing plans and zones allow unlimited height. If, for example, the Caruso project were built one-half mile to the north, at LaCienega and Wilshire, it would not need to all those planning entitlements you support. It would also be adjacent to a future subway station. Furthermore, building luxury housing near subway or light rail stations does NOT create affordable housing. There is no supply and demand linkage between these totally disconnected parts of the housing market.

5) No Mr. Mayor Los Angeles does not have high rents because of its existing zoning. 

Rents are high because of four other reasons:

-  LA’s rent stabilization ordinance is weak, and it needs to be amended to stop vacancy decontrol and automatic annual rent increases. 

-  Congress eliminated nearly all Federal affordable housing programs, beginning in the 1970s.

- The California State Legislature dissolved the Community Redevelopment Agency, which spent 20 percent of its budget on affordable housing.

- In Los Angeles the real estate developers who fund City Hall campaigns do not want to build by-right affordable housing and market housing where it is permitted because they make fatter profits through luxury high rise buildings. Their business model, not zoning, is the barrier. 

6) No Mr. Mayor, the purpose of updating LA’s General Plan is not to facilitate the wishes of real estate investors. 

The reason we need to update the General Plan is to address climate change, determine where there is adequate infrastructure and services for existing and future development, where geology and hydrology affect the built environment, and where there is the greatest demand for housing, jobs, infrastructure improvement, and public services. 

7) No Mr. Mayor, Measure S does not prevent the City of Los Angeles from using City-owned property for affordable housing. 

This program has been on the books since the 1980s, initiated by your predecessor, Mayor Tom Bradley. The City Council then hired consultants to identify thousands of city-owned properties, but in the intervening 30 years only the air rights over several parking lots have been used for affordable housing. 

Now, coming out of a Rip Van Winkle sleep, your administration has resurrected this Bradley-era program, selecting 11 out of 9000 separate parcels that may or may not be stopped by Measure S. The thousands of parcels that would NOT be blocked by Measure S have been kept out of view, and there are no details on what is actually proposed for the 12 sites since, so far, there is only a Request for Proposals (RFP). 

If this results in serious proposals, and if they are for 100 percent affordable housing, and only need a zone change, Measure S would not make any difference. 

Meanwhile, stop scraping the bottom on the barrel to find a few hypothetical conflicts with Measure S. It is high time for you to direct your staff to identify which of the remaining 8,993 City-owned parcels are already suitable for by-right affordable housing construction. 

LA’s Cycle of Decline 

Mr. Mayor, the approach to governance revealed by your public opposition to Measure S draws Los Angeles into cycle of further decline. In LA, with all it complexity and energy, City Hall is now just governing by the seat of its pants, lurching one way or another depending on which real estate honcho walks through the mahogany doors. A diametrically different approach, one based on the careful planning and monitoring mandated by Measure S, is the leadership Los Angeles now needs.

(Dick Platkin is a former Los Angeles City Planner who reports on local planning issues for City Watch. Please send any comments or corrections to [email protected].) Edited for CityWatch by Linda Abrams.

@THE GUSS REPORT-LA City Council got a sliver of local media attention last week when it stated its objection to President Trump’s nomination of Scott Pruitt to run the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), even though it regularly prevents members of the public from speaking on issues not under its purview. Regardless, Pruitt was approved 11-0 in the Senate’s Environment and Public Works Committee and his nomination now moves to the full Senate. 

So the Councilmembers threw caution to the wind at their subsequent meeting on Friday with an agenda item that objected to all of Trump’s other nominees. Kinda. Sorta. Well, not really. 

What they ended up doing is not thinking things through, and it could cost LA big-time, including the Olympics. 

For instance, the Councilmembers objected to Trump nominee Rex Tillerson to head the State Department. But it must have been lost on them that Tillerson is no longer a nominee, but the actual Secretary of State, sworn-in and presently overseas on his first trip. Details, details. 

Wait, wait, it gets better … 

I pointed out to City Council president Herb Wesson that for a city seeking the Olympics and in desperate need of infrastructure for it, it is not a good idea to oppose Elaine Chao as Trump’s nominee to head the Department of Transportation -- especially since she, too, was already approved, sworn-in and on the job. And one more thing: she is married to Mitch McConnell, the all-powerful U.S. Senate majority leader; not a good guy to piss-off. 

Aside from that, the blurb on City Council’s agenda condemning Chao erroneously reads that Chao’s appointment as Secretary of Transportation would, among other things, negatively impact “the rights of employees” and “a fair minimum wage.”

Huh? Since when does the Department of Transportation handle what the Department of Labor and Congress do?

Whoever wrote these blurbs for City Council may have tried to do their homework, but got it completely wrong.

Chao was the 24^th Secretary of Labor for President George W. Bush from 2001 to 2009, the longest tenure in that role since WWII. And she was the Director of the Peace Corp. And she was the President and CEO of United Way. And she has a Harvard MBA. And she was the first Asian female ever to serve in a presidential cabinet. She came to the United States at age 8 from Taipei, Taiwan, not speaking a word of English and grew to personify the American Dream. 

Yep, Elaine Chao is thoroughly unqualified for a presidential cabinet position, according to the Los Angeles City Council. 

Later, Wesson sheepishly directed his colleagues to strike their objection to Chao. They did -- after I pointed out that she was already approved by the U.S. Senate 93-6. 

The Councilmembers also oppose Ben Carson as Secretary of Housing and Urban Development, citing (among other inane notions) not that he lacks experience in this field, but that he would bring a negative impact on….religious tolerance? Carson, it so happens, was approved in the first round of screening by none other than the Democrats’ leaders of the left Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren and Ohio Senator Sherrod Brown, among others. 

When it came to Secretary of Education, Betsy DeVos, who is actually still a nominee, City Council cited in its objection to her possible negative influence on “the economy of the American people.” 

Say what? 

If LA City Councilmembers think that the Secretary of Education influences the nation’s economic policy, perhaps DeVos should dismantle the public education system….at least those schools attended by these Councilmembers….and with good cause. 

Seriously, who wrote this stuff…former Councilmember Tom LaBonge? (Thank you, Ron Kaye, former Editor of the LA Daily News for forever memorializing this clip.) 

Councilmember Paul Koretz admitted an oversight on the list: his colleagues should also disapprove of Steve Mnuchin, the nominee for the Department of Treasury. 

It was hardly their only omission.

Does the LA City Council not object to conservative federal appellate judge Neil Gorsuch as Trump’s nominee to replace the late Antonin Scalia on the United States Supreme Court? He is Columbia- , Oxford- and Harvard Law-educated and, at age 49, could serve 35 to 40 years on the bench, and have immense impact on the lives of all Americans. Given the blanket nature of City Council’s hit list, our 15 lawmakers either implicitly approve of Gorsuch by not having his name on it … or their lack of awareness of his name in the headlines is pretty half-baked. Or it was fully-baked, as Benjamin Braddock said in The Graduate.

Watch and see if City Council scrambles in the next week or so to voice its objection to Gorsuch now that I have pointed it out here. 

They also forgot to add objections, assuming they have them, to already-approved General James Mattis of the Defense Department, Mike Pompeo of the CIA, General Mike Flynn of the NSA, and so on and so forth. If they do not do this, it means that they either implicitly approve of these Trump appointments, given their public decrying of Trump’s other nominees, or their opinions on them are a day late and a dollar short. 

When all was said and done, the Councilmembers voted unanimously against all of them…except Chao, of whom they did not explicitly approve. You could hear a pin drop in the room. It was a bunch of ceremonial nothingness, and equal to the amount of thought they put into it. 

In an ironic twist, City Council’s opinion on these appointments will be considered by the White House with the same degree of disregard that City Council pays to the public at its own meetings.

(Daniel Guss, MBA, is a contributor to CityWatch, Huffington Post, KFI AM-640 and elsewhere. Follow him on Twitter @TheGussReport. His opinions are his own and do not necessarily reflect the views of CityWatch.) Edited for CityWatch by Linda Abrams.

MIRACLE MILE--I’m sure if Mayor Eric Garcetti were asked to vote for more homelessness in Los Angeles he would answer resoundingly: NO! I’m equally sure that were each member of the Los Angeles City Council asked the same question we’d hear the same resounding answer: NO. Some might even say HELL NO! 

So, that leaves many of us in the Miracle Mile thoroughly puzzled by Councilmember David Ryu’s answer to us when he was asked to save the 500 rent stabilized (RSO) apartments the City Planning Commission ripped out of the Miracle Mile Historic Preservation Overlay Zone (HPOZ). Ryu has been a consistent advocate for rent controlled housing, yet he seems genuinely convinced that one or more of his colleagues will vote to sink the entire HPOZ if he steps up and demands that the Council save the rent stabilized apartments in the heart of the Miracle Mile. 

Perhaps Ryu is worried that the Mayor will veto an HPOZ that preserves those rent stabilized apartments, which stand in the path Garcetti and his allies have carved out for supersized, transit-close development. If Ryu successfully convinces Council to restore the original HPOZ plan drafted by the Planning Department and approved by the city’s Cultural Heritage Commission, Garcetti will be foiled. The Mayor’s appointed Planning Commission eliminated those 500 RSO units from the HPOZ, so that gives us a clue as to what the Mayor might do—but maybe not. What we do know is that approximately 1000 renters will face imminent eviction if their apartments lose HPOZ protection. 

Statistically that could mean that 7 of those individuals will end up homeless. And there could be more if Council President Herb Wesson follows through with his unwarranted and unscientific poll – taking in only the views of owners, not renters – that could result in another 300 rent stabilized units being sliced from the CD 10 portion of the Miracle Mile HPOZ. 

The tenants of these RSO units are our brothers, sisters, mothers, fathers, sons, daughters and friends. They are valued members of our community and they cannot be cast into the streets because of the “significant investment that we’re making in Wilshire Boulevard,” as Planning Commission President David Ambroz recently said. Fellow Commissioner Dana M. Perlman echoed Ambroz: All those historic, small-scale, rent controlled apartments in the Miracle Mile between 8^th Street and Wilshire had to go because the multibillion dollar investment in the Purple Line subway extension requires a future of high-rise, high-density, luxury apartments. 

Preserving the neighborhood, and saving the homes of countless residents, Perlman dismissed as short-sighted. “We’re doing it for today and we’re not planning for the future, and part of our responsibility, of course, is to look to the future,” Perlman said. A future, that is, without affordable housing within walking distance of the subway being built specifically to address the needs of the transit-dependent – which is to say, people who do not live in luxury apartments and do not drive luxury cars! 

Thus far, the city’s carte blanche for developers in the Miracle Mile has eliminated 100 rent stabilized apartments, constructed 1,800 market-rate luxury units, and built just 2 low-income dwellings. This is the reality which Ryu now seems willing to embrace and extend, and with it, the guarantee that some residents will end up living on the streets. Meanwhile many others will be pushed further away from the very transit corridor they were living in because they’ll be permanently priced out of the new housing being built. That’s a morally bankrupt tradeoff, plain and simple. 

So it goes. Planning Commissioner Robert Ahn (now running for U.S. Congress), made the objective all too clear when he applauded the removal of Olympic Boulevard from the HPOZ. He inadvertently let the cat out of the bag when he said “I think we need to maintain flexibility on a major street like Olympic Boulevard for the future planning purposes.” Is no street safe from the gilded grasp of the Mayor’s developer buddies? 

Will there be a vote in favor of more homelessness? If the answer is NO, then it can only come if Councilman Ryu refuses to support the CPC gutting decision and demands all the removed properties be reinstated. And then he’ll have to show his mettle in City Council. He will need 9 other members to stand with him to override the CPC. 

Councilman Ryu supports saving RSO units. He has proven that on several occasions. We need to support and encourage him to take a stand against the CPC and the Mayor. This is his Council District and he was elected to protect our neighborhoods. 

No excuses will be entertained. A vote to sustain the CPC decision is a vote for homelessness. A vote to restore the RSO units is a vote against homelessness. Let’s make sure all our elected officials say NO to homelessness! Reinstate the Miracle Mile HPOZ! Save historic, affordable, rent-controlled housing!

(James O’Sullivan is President of the Miracle Mile Residential Association and co-founder of Fix the City … a non-profit, citizen association whose stated goal is its name … to Fix the City. He is an occasional contributor to CityWatch.)

-cw

@THE GUSS REPORT-Los Angeles City Controller Ron Galperin finally woke up from the slumber he has been in during his first term in office regarding alleged LAFD fire inspector fraud, a subject about which he and Mayor Eric Garcetti have long since known, but failed to remedy. Or even address.

It was here on CityWatch where the alleged fraud was first exposed in 2016, followed by stories in the LA Weekly by Hillel Aron and then on KCBS by David Goldstein. The LA Times has yet to correct its fallacious story on Deputy Fire Chief and fraud whistleblower John Vidovich. 

While there is proof that Galperin’s office is finally poking around the edges of the story, you wouldn’t know it by speaking with anyone there.

Deborah Hong, Galperin’s Assistant Deputy of Communications, a week ago denied knowledge of an investigation. Then, late last week, she said “our office’s policy is to neither confirm nor deny whether we are investigating.”  

But when asked why that rule didn’t apply to Galperin’s abundance of public appearances on radio and television during his investigation of the $40 million that disappeared within two LADWP non-profits, Hong said that she wasn’t with Galperin at the time and didn’t know the answer. 

Instead, she referred me to Ted Rohrlich, Galperin’s Deputy Controller, Policy and Internal Affairs.

Rohrlich, too, sidestepped the issue of LAFD fraud, the LADWP, LA Animal Services and other cases where the rule didn’t apply.

The other questions which Galperin’s office refused to address are as follows: 

1. Why is the Controller’s office investigating the LAFD now, even though there is documentation that they have long since known about the fraud allegations? 

2. Did Galperin’s delay have anything to do with the $350,000 that the firefighter’s national union donated to local incumbents up for re-election? 

3. Did the delay have anything to do with LAFD firefighter trainees being allowed – for the first time – to vote in union leadership elections? 

And…

4. Does Galperin acknowledge that his failure to proactively pursue a fraud investigation, and make referrals of any wrongdoers to District Attorney Jackie Lacey for prosecution, resulted in the racial discrimination lawsuit filed last week in which several of the plaintiffs were fire inspectors implicated by Vidovich? 

According to FireLawBlog.com: 

“The suit was filed yesterday in Los Angeles County Superior Court by Battalion Chief Jerome Boyd, Captain Gary Carpenter, Captain Andre Johnson, Captain David Riles, Inspector Aaron Walker and Inspector Glenn Martinez. The complaint describes Chief Boyd, Captain Carpenter, Captain Johnson, David Riles, and Inspector Walker as African American and Inspector Martinez as Hispanic.” 

Martinez and Walker are two of the inspectors identified as fraudsters by Vidovich, who is a co-defendant in the lawsuit along with LAFD Chief Ralph Terrazas, Assistant Chief Kwame Cooper and the City of Los Angeles, which is sure to cost the taxpayers a fortune to defend. 

In what may be the ultimate irony, the lawsuit alleges that the LAFD is an “all-white boys club.” Terrazas is Latino and Cooper is black. 

Instead of a good, proactive performance as City Controller, Galperin now has the City of Los Angeles playing defense. 

An even bigger breach of civic duty might have been committed by the LA Times, which does not appear to have reported on the discrimination lawsuit or Galperin’s investigation at all, based on a cursory search of its website.

(Daniel Guss, MBA, is a contributor to CityWatch, Huffington Post, KFI AM-640 and elsewhere. Follow him on Twitter @TheGussReport. His opinions are his own and do not necessarily reflect the views of CityWatch.) Edited for CityWatch by Linda Abrams.