Comments@THE GUSS REPORT-Every minute that local governments like the Los Angeles City Council spend on anything other than matters directly related to the deadly, global Coronavirus epidemic is political malfeasance. That is corrupt in its own unique way.
Let’s dive in to see how its misguided LA City Council President Nury Martinez is failing Los Angeles with deadly consequences about to escalate as the region is estimated to be two weeks out from the virus’s anticipated apex.
A few months back, it was clear to those closely following Martinez that, after being feted as the first Latina council president, she wasn’t embracing the gravitas of the job or its responsibilities, including preparedness, managing the agenda and running LA City Council meetings, which she largely pawned-off to her male colleagues – namely, Councilmembers Joe Buscaino, Paul Koretz and David Ryu.
At that time, this column quoted Patricia McAllister, a local government gadfly, who was fed up with Martinez, and colorfully and politically incorrectly said at a Council meeting, “Now you wanna get that kind of respect, you be like the boys. Get that skirt off, put some pants on and do your job.”
Right now, LA’s dearth of City Hall leadership is glaringly evident, both with Martinez and Mayor Eric Garcetti.
On Friday, Garcetti had nothing better to do than appear with his omnipresent, awkward grin on the temporarily humorless, audience-less HBO comedy-talk show “Real Time with Bill Maher.”
The segment was pre-recorded around the time Garcetti gives his daily 30+ minute Coronavirus press conference during which he provides roughly two minutes of worthy information enveloped by 28 minutes of vacuous, repetitive and fawning professions of his love for us.
And how about that diversity! Garcetti was one of Maher’s five guests, each a white, wealthy male, with the others being Willie Nelson, Bernie Sanders, Seth MacFarlane and Max Brooks, each of whom provided the same trite, humorless and awkward interview that Garcetti coughed up.
Clue for Garcetti: People want info, not poetic declarations, and it’s okay to do a two-minute press conference in roughly two minutes. Really.
Even the LA news media covering Garcetti’s daily yawn-fests are fed-up. Watch next time to see how quickly they cut-away from it to go on to other elements of the deadly, global pandemic.
With Nury Martinez, however, it’s a different story. She is comprehensively dropping the ball both across the City and in her own community, Council District 6 in the San Fernando Valley.
Martinez, who has taken a radio silence stance toward this column, can be legally forced to cough up documents that expose her failure to recognize the gravitas of her job during the Corona Virus scare. We won’t go there (yet) but she should ask the corrupt LAPD what it was like going up against this columnist and attorney Paul Nicholas Boylan in court for withholding public records and when I punched back it at and LA City Attorney Mike Feuer for their abuses.
That said, Martinez has ignored multiple inquiries from this column about non-essential businesses open in her District including smoke shops and auto body (not auto repair) shops, despite her and her senior staff, Ackley Padilla, Alexis Marin-Wesson and Rick Coca being shown photos of them.
Odd, given that Garcetti has called on Angelenos to “snitch” on such activities. No point in snitching when City Hall’s position is it’s just something we say; not anything we will act on.
Martinez has also ignored street corners where hard-working day laborers gather in very close proximity along with street food vendors without a sign let alone any Martinez representative visiting them to warn of the need for hand washing and social distancing.
So what has Nury Martinez got in store for the non-emergency City Council agenda for Tuesday, with just a handful of days left before Southern California – according to all local governments – is expected to be walloped with disease and death?
Wait for it. . .
Liquor licenses and property liens!
Yes, folks. Step right up! Nury Martinez has placed at the top of her Tuesday agenda liquor licenses for places like Jeff Bezos’s Amazon stores, among others. Heck, it’s just like non-Coronavirus days when access to more alcohol “for convenience or necessity” is the thing that matters most.
Note that the “last day to act” on most of those liquor licenses is nearly two months away, so why the urgency to get them done now? Because corruption has a timeline, too.
Martinez also has property liens on the agenda, which is ironic given that the Council has been begged to call for a blanket moratorium against evictions, rent increases and the like. Liens only put more financial pressure on people who are already in financial distress.
How exactly is anyone supposed to show up to contest their lien or ask for a reduction or more time to pay them if they can’t go to the Council meeting and calling in has proven disastrous and unreliable?
I say this because Martinez was incredibly unprepared for her first two Council meetings of the Coronavirus era.
The first meeting had members of the public (not just the gadflies) sitting in the frigid courtyard of City Hall in a tent, with hideous technical failures, deprived of access to a bathroom on the property, let alone the coffee and goodies Martinez and her peers chowed down on at public expense over a lengthy meeting. It’s a miracle that City Hall hasn’t been sued over that since the public could have been allowed to stay – at a safe social distance – in City Hall’s heated atrium, where bathrooms are located, or the “overflow” Council room down the hallway.
Martinez’s second meeting of the Coronavirus era was even worse, as she presided while pranksters streamed pornography into the live stream while more than 200 people called in to air their grievances. In and between those calls, Martinez was mocked by the usual contingent in rather graphic terms and the pressure took its toll on the frequently emotional Martinez.
Shame on Nury Martinez and her Council peers for their disregard of those who need their help now more than ever before.
If anything positive is going to come of the epidemic, it’s that we’re going to see whether and how well our local governments adjust to this crisis which is something my colleagues on CityWatch and at other outlets have long warned about: incompetence, corruption and unpreparedness at LA City Hall and its peer governments and agencies.
To be continued. . .
(Daniel Guss, MBA, is a member of the Los Angeles Press Club, and has contributed to CityWatchLA, KFI AM-640, iHeartMedia, 790-KABC, Huffington Post, Los Angeles Daily News, Los Angeles Magazine, Movieline Magazine, Emmy Magazine, Los Angeles Business Journal, Pasadena Star News, Los Angeles Downtown News, and the Los Angeles Times in its Sports, Opinion, Entertainment sections and Sunday Magazine, among other publishers. Follow him on Twitter @TheGussReport. His opinions are his own and do not necessarily reflect the views of CityWatch.) Photo: (Al Seib / Los Angeles Times) Prepped for CityWatch by Linda Abrams.
