LA Councilmember Gets Support from Her Brethren. Will LA’s NCs Support Each Other?

One clue is that 100 former officials -- Republicans all -- are now threatening to form a third party unless other Republicans come to their senses over the Trump claims of election stealing. 

It's not too much of a stretch to suggest that if even ten or fifteen percent of Republicans leave the party to support opposition candidates, this would open the doors wide for Democratic victories in states where the two parties are fairly close. 

They don't even have to be "swing" states in the traditional sense of a state that sometimes goes one way and sometimes goes the other. They just have to be states where Republicans win by five or ten percent routinely. For Democrats, losing by five percent in the past suddenly becomes winning by two percent in the future. 

Of course this fantasy is likely just that -- a fantasy -- but that's because the Republican bubble as defined by Fox News watchers is too solid so far. Right now it's a minority bubble as defined by the 2020 election results, but in those marginally Republican states it's still Republican. 

But there would be one substantial difference in a national election in which a third party participated. In close states like Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, and even Georgia, the loss of twenty or thirty thousand once-Republican voters would make all the difference. Those highly contested states would no longer even be close. 

And voting for a third party isn't like getting up on the floor of the House of Representatives and supporting Trump because you fear his revenge. We still have the secret ballot in this country. Maybe that's the next thing the Republican state legislators will try to abolish. 

PS: Why does everybody refer to it as an "ouster"? 

Three LA City Councilmen show their contempt for neighborhood council participants 

In the previous column, I talked about a motion by City Council representative Monica Rodriguez (Photo above) which would demand that the City Attorney and the Department of Neighborhood Empowerment investigate neighborhood council elections. Then, these departments would have present their reports to the City Council, explaining how it can (or can't) change the election rules once again. 

The motion was assigned to the Arts, Parks, Health, Education, and Neighborhoods Committee which took it up on Tuesday. Listening in to the meeting (one of the advantages to this pandemic is that we can tune in on most everything), I was reminded that Rodriguez isn't even a member of this committee. It actually consists of John Lee, Mike Bonin, and Mark Ridley-Thomas. Curiously (at least to me) the committee had all three members in attendance that day. 

The clerk called off phone numbers for people who wanted to speak, and lots of people did. Except for one, all of us spoke on the neighborhood council election item (number 6 on the agenda), and of those, all but two were strongly opposed. As I mentioned in the previous piece, the Rodriguez motion singled out the Sunland Tujunga Neighborhood Council election as being discriminatory, ostensibly because it was one of the councils that requires some form of documentation in order to be able to vote. 

There were two who were in favor of the Rodriguez motion. One was the guy who lost the election for president of the Sunland Tujunga Neighborhood Council. 

Try as they might, the angry losers and their City Council weren't all that successful in  concocting a "stop the steal" movement. Perhaps it would have seemed a little too Trumpian, or maybe just silly. But if you are going to contest the election and you didn't get the votes, you complain about the process. 

I listened to the public comments and on the weight of them all, there could be little disagreement over the following two points: (1) There were plenty of people who cared enough about the issue to take time off on a Tuesday afternoon to call in and speak their minds, and (2) The majority sentiment was in opposition to the motion. 

I gave my own comments which, in the minute I was allowed to speak, were a short summary of what I wrote in the last column -- this motion is just an attempt to relitigate something we have argued about ad nauseum. 

So, what did the learned council members do? I didn't have time to wait around to listen, but I did manage to get a description from somebody who did stay. 

What did they do? As explained to me, they took up the motion and passed it without further discussion. 

What are the ramifications of that vote? Well for one thing, lots of people, yours truly included, will have to take time to oppose and protest. We will discuss motions at our neighborhood council board meetings and we will make phone calls. 

In short, hundreds of hours of our time will be wasted because three supposed leaders -- elected by the people to take responsibility -- couldn't even find the strength to quietly "receive and file" the motion. It was no skin of their noses because the donkey work will be done by the staff of the City Attorney's office and the staffers at DONE, not to mention us unpaid neighborhood council participants. 

So, the next time we are asked to think or speak kindly about John Lee, Mike Bonin, or Mark Ridley-Thomas, let's first ask whether they couldn't have taken just that little bit of responsibility that the situation demanded of them. After all, they are the committee that oversees the neighborhood council system, and they are supposed to know what this question is all about. 

Let me repeat myself from the previous discussion: I see no problem with considering the organization of the neighborhood council system and its operations, starting from 1999 and continuing to the present day. But it shouldn't be done as a sour grapes attempt to undercut an otherwise lawful election. Or if Monica Rodriguez really wants to investigate the STNC election, let her do so on her own time, in her own committee. 

John Lee, Mike Bonin, and Mark Ridley-Thomas were, on that day and for that vote, not a lot different from the House Republicans who just voted Liz Cheney out of her leadership role. Facing a motion that none of them would have written, but also looking at a vote which might have been embarrassing to one of their City Council colleagues, they gave in and passed the motion. 

Their ain't no such thing as a free loaf of French bread 

Robert A Heinlein, in The Moon is a Harsh Mistress, introduced the acronym TANSTAAFL, which he explained meant "there ain't no such thing as a free lunch." Keep that message in mind as we speak of Vons Market and the Monopoly game. 

This story comes from a San Pedro woman who happened to be shopping at the Vons Market over on 25th and Western (I identify it to distinguish it from the other Vons Market here in Pedro). 

When you buy stuff, the Vons markets give out these little blue folded papers that say Monopoly on them. The more stuff you. buy, the more you get. Then, if you have patience and stout fingernails, you open each one. In previous years, you also got a paper Monopoly board and the little papers defined which different squares to cover. So one ticket might be Marvin Gardens and another might be Park Place, and somehow you could win things. A few people might even win money or groceries. 

It hasn't worked all that wonderfully well for most folks, but on occasion, we have gotten the equivalent of a jar of peanut butter or a box of cereal. 

This year, they are no longer giving out the paper Monopoly boards. Apparently you are supposed to go online and find an electronic equivalent. So the lady I am speaking of collected her coupons but didn't feel like doing the online thing. But among the coupons, there are a few instant winners here and there. 

An instant winner means just that -- this year she has won a free bottle of water and a free loaf of French bread. A couple of weeks ago she was in the other Vons Market here in Pedro, got a bottle of water, and cashed in the coupon for it. Easy as pie (even if it wasn't pie). 

So this week she was in the other Vons. Here's the story she told: 

She remembered she had the instant winner coupon in her purse, so she went to the bakery and asked the clerk, who pointed her to the loaves of French bread that were the prizes. She took a loaf and eventually got to the cash register with her other purchases. She happily put the loaf of French bread right up front on the belt along with the instant winner coupon. 

And the checker, a sour and rotund fellow, told her No. She had to do something with her phone. She didn't quite understand because for whatever reason, the fellow was not pronouncing his words in an understandable fashion. She figured that he was probably telling her that the game only worked if you went online and got it installed in your phone. But it had been a nice day and she wasn't looking to make trouble, so she just stuck the loaf of French bread at the other end of the conveyer belt -- you know, the place right at the beginning that is metal and doesn't move. she left it. 

And then things got a little heated. The checker actually pointed out to her sternly that she should give him the bread. She wondered if he was feeling more nicely towards her and was going to figure out how to give her the prize, but instead he chided her (I'm using a politer term than I heard from her) about how she shouldn't leave the bread on the other end of the belt. It was like being punished for being a bad girl. 

Curious thing -- here she was, the customer with a winning ticket and the winning prize, and she's getting yelled at because, after being told she couldn't actually have her prize, she didn't argue, but put the prize down so it wouldn't get added to her purchases. It seemed like a rational and adult way to handle the situation. 

And then she thought to herself, No, I don't really need to put up with this. I don't need to get yelled at for winning the prize and then having it being taken away by some grouch. So she told the checker to cancel the order, left her groceries on the belt, and walked out. 

Probably never to return to that market ever again. 

Actually, there is a Smart and Final just on the other side of Western. She hadn't shopped there much before, but tried it and liked it. Looks like S&F has a new customer. She says that none of the staff at S&F yelled at her about anything.

(Bob Gelfand writes on science, culture, and politics for CityWatch. He can be reached at [email protected])

-cw