The Garcetti Administration Has Its Own Fake News

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CORRUPTION WATCH-A grand assemblage of knaves, fools and moral Lilliputians rule the city Los Angeles. Do not expect that to change. 

Recently, a few Americans have shown concern for Fake News. They realize that Fake News has real consequences as when a fool shows up at a pizza shop with an automatic weapon to “self-investigate” Hillary Clinton’s role in a child abuse ring in Washington D.C. 

In Los Angeles, Judge Alan Goodman warned the public about our own form of Fake News: Information from the City of Los Angeles. In January 2014, Judge Goodman ruled that Eric Garcetti’s update to the Hollywood Community Plan was based on lies and myths, which Judge Goodman described in polite legalese, saying that the city’s planning was based on “fatally flawed data” and “wishful thinking.” 

When the City published stories about how Hollywood has been revitalized and that its population is growing at a robust rate, when in fact is was deteriorating and rapidly shrinking, this was Fake News. Based on the continuing Fake News that Hollywood is still the center of the universe and hordes of people are descending up the town, one huge mega-project after another is being unanimously approved the LA City Council. And the approvals are justified by the endless Fake News emanating from City Hall. 

Hollywood’s “official” population fluctuates as frequently as Donald Trump tweets. Just as no one can find the millions of illegal votes that were cast for Hillary Clinton to disguise the “fact” that Trump won the popular vote, no one can find the real Hollywood population. In its April 2006 Notice of Preparation for its latest Update to the Hollywood Community Plan, the Garcetti Administration claimed that the population was 206,000 people, citing “SCAG’s 2016 RTP” (that is, the 2016 Southern California Association of Government’s Regional Transportation Plan.) Fake News. The SCAG 2016 RTP has no data at all for Hollywood. The only “Hollywood” which the RTP mentioned is West Hollywood. 

Upon investigation, we discovered that SCAG had done some other demographic analysis for Hollywood’s population, but never found that Hollywood’s population was as high as 206,000 people. The highest number that can be extrapolated from the SCAG data was 204,700. When this Fake News was shared with the City, the Garcetti Administration chose to stick with the fake numbers. We know the reason. This Fake News supports the false need to construct all the mega-projects. 

Then in November 2016, mirabile dictu, the Garcetti Administration announced that Hollywood’s 2015 population was 210,511 people. Does that mean that the April 2016 NOP had missed 4,500 people or that between December 2015 and April 2016, Hollywood’s population had declined by 4,500? Don’t bother asking…it’s all Fake News! 

People are accustomed to Fake News. In fact, people prefer it. Megyn Kelley hit the nail on the head in 2012, when she doubted Karl Rove’s insistence that Mitt Romney was winning the presidential election by asking, "Is this just math that you do as a Republican to make yourself feel better, or is this real?" 

Megyn Kelley’s diagnosis was correct – people invent the news that makes them feel better, or in the case of Los Angeles, justifies the perpetuation of a criminal enterprise which we call the Los Angeles City Council. Oh, that LA had Megyn Kelly instead of the LA Times, whose motto is “All the news that the elite wants you to believe.” 

Poor Edgar Maddison Welch from Salisbury, North Carolina, who drove all the way to Washington to self-investigate the pizza parlor. At least Mr. Welch’s “self-investigation” placed him far ahead of the Angelenos who merely accept whatever Fake News gushes forth from City Hall. 

Fake News Has Real Consequences. 

While the false story about child-molesting at the pizza parlor was an extreme aggravation for its owner, the Fake News from LA City Hall has had a devastating impact on all of Los Angeles. In a report the Garcetti Administration never thought the public would find, the City admitted in November 2015, that in 2013, the last year for which it had data (why the 2 year lag?), it had constructed “150% [of the] units needed by above moderate income earners,” adding to the 12% vacancy rate of such apartments constructed in the last decade. The City said that a 5% vacancy rate was equilibrium. Generally, when the vacancy is 2.5 times equilibrium, one does not push ahead with plans to construct even more vacant housing. 

Why is LA City Hall so committed to Fake News? The main reason is that the City is run as a criminal enterprise whose function is to siphon off public money to make a few landowners very wealthy while everyone else suffers. 

This phenomenon is not new. Over 100 years ago in its 1915 Study of Street Traffic Conditions in the City of Los Angeles, civil engineers warned that a few land owners would want to restrict office and industrial usage to the core of the city in order to make themselves wealthy. But the engineers explained, with sound mathematics related to Los Angeles geography, that the city had to allow all segments of the community, offices, homes, industry, community and civic center to expand outwards in unison. In other words, decentralization was essential. 

Restricting the distribution of all segments of the community, however, resulted in massive projects to be built in areas like Bunker Hill, Century City, and Westwood while at the same time turning the Valleys into bedroom communities. Separating those dense office areas from the residential communities would then require expensive transportation projects to convey so many people from the 5,000 square mile county to a few tenths of square miles of the Bunker Hills, Century, City, Westwood, and now to DTLA and Hollywood. 

Like the serfs of the 1400s, Angelenos have come to accept this arrangement as the natural order of life. Should it be brought to the attention of Angelenos that their city leads in all the negative indicators and lags in all the positive indicators for quality of urban life, we have endless Fake News from City Hall to falsely assure us that we’re still the premier destination city. 

Will Angelenos Act Before it is too late? 

No. It already is too late. Besides, the criminal enterprise is firmly established and everyone wants it to continue. Look at the people throwing their hats in the ring to run of City Council in March 2017. How many are willing to give up the chance to become the Lord of their Council Fiefdom? None. 

Is there any City Council candidate who will relinquish the power to have each and every item he or she places on the City Council agenda unanimously passed? If so, please step forward. 

Nor is there any danger that the criminal enterprise where every developer gets unanimous approval for projects will go away soon. Judge David Fruin has declared that the City is above the law. 

According to this learned jurist, Penal Code 86, which criminalized the vote trading agreement that is the glue that holds the LA City Council together, is Non-Justiciable – beyond the power of the courts. It does not matter what laws the California State Legislature passes; the Los Angeles City Council does not have to follow any law unless it voluntarily chooses to do so. 

The Law May be Pernicious, but it is not Fake. 

The problem with placing the City Council above the law is more serious than a lone self-investigator showing up with an automatic rifle. Our infrastructure has crumbled, the homeless rate has escalated, the crime rate is out of control no matter how much Garcetti tries to have the LAPD fudge the data, the Family Millennials and the high-end employers are fleeing the city for places like the Texas Triangle. 

Alea jacta est.  The die has been cast for our future tax base which, for a generation going forward, will have lower skilled wage earners and a higher percent of children and elderly retired. Just as Julius Caesar’s crossing the Rubicon sealed the fate of the Roman Republic, Judge Fruin is sealing LA’s fate of being ruled by a criminal enterprise.

 

(Richard Lee Abrams is a Los Angeles attorney. He can be reached at: [email protected]. Abrams views are his own and do not necessarily reflect the views of CityWatch.) Edited for CityWatch by Linda Abrams.