A good article that tells us a lot more info than Chick’s “audit” which rehashes what the public safety committee already learned and proposed a plan to remedy. You’re also unfairly bashing them, Celeste, when the problem is that the 16 scientists they identified as needed for the job just were not approved for funding by the Council, because that takes a majority and the rest of them have their pet projects. And often, only when the public and media cry out for something do they prioritize it as a budget item. For now, it’s been limited to hiring cops by the LAPD.

(The first version didn’t go thru so I’m resubmitting with this — apologies if they both turn up.)

A good article that tells us a lot more info than Chick’s “audit” which rehashes what the public safety committee already learned and proposed a plan to remedy. You’re also unfairly bashing them, Celeste, when the problem is that the 16 scientists they identified as needed for the job just were not approved for funding by the Council, because that takes a majority and the rest of them have their pet projects. And often, only when the public and media cry out for something do they prioritize it as a budget item. For now, it’s been limited to hiring cops by the LAPD.

Orlov is solidly a Valley-ite, conservative suburban, and his stories are generally twisted against anything to do with metro LA, the Council or the Mayor’s office. While I’m no “progressive” leftie, I do resent the bias against the sheer geography of metro LA and especially the westside from conservatives and those on the Eastside. (Orlov’s more of a Ron Kaye holdover as I read him.) In contrast to new editor Carolina Garcia, who has her own very polar opposite slant usually. Orlov even seems to think Smith isn’t Republican enough, a sell-out, and seems to enjoy making him out to be a lot more ineffectual than is the case. Orlov’s faction has been on the bandwagon calling the Mayor a liar for not putting literally every penny of the trash tax towards new hires, and has ignored Weiss and Smith’s pleas to LAPD and Council to fund the scientists. Like Rutten and the rest who only see a story when they’re hit on the head with a catchy scandal.

These are just some of the nuances lost by having their owner/ Chief Editor (whatever his title is), Dean Singleton, outsourcing these sorts of local stories to a writer/ hack in India or China, absurd as that sounds. (Referencing your earlier post.) Reading between the lines of local coverage as well as what council colleagues say about each other is half the fun of following them. Then again, maybe some guy in India would have put in Smith’s whole quote and detailed their efforts instead of infusing it with the writer’s bias.

It’s pretty unusual to have Smith come out so publicly against another City official, but I think it’s justified by her grandstanding and carefully contrived public anguish over the situation, without giving any credit where it’s due.

Nothing in Chick’s report adds anything or tells us what’s really going on inside LAPD on this — blaming everyone isn’t helpful. Did the PS Committee manage in the last year to awaken their awareness, or was it just the debacle of the recent revelations about losing fed funding and the backlog? Doesn’t the LAPD already have the lab? Isn’t there also a similar issue the PS Committee’s been pressing them on involving hiring anti-terror experts, where a shiny new lab and control center exists (the same one?) but lacks staffing?

But the papers had not been taking the issue seriously until they pounced on the dept. losing out on these matching funds. Rutten’s article is right to point out that part of the problem with the Mayor’s actually apparently voting against funding for the issue, because he made the mistake of promising that “every penny” of the trash fee hikes would go toward “hiring more cops,” so the public and media have been claiming he lied, since Chick’s earlier audit showed that much of the money went to other dept. needs. He boxed himself in with that one sentence, whereas those funds should legitimately be going toward the forensic scientists and other essential needs as well.

Now that Chick has just rehashed the problem without even a mention to the Public Safety Committee’s work, Smith seems right that she’s disrespectful and downright inaccurate in her grandstanding about the issue. She’s been accused of this kind of thing before — just rehashing existing info to grab headlines, even if she knowingly and unfairly throws others under the bus.

And the media didn’t listen or make efforts to influence LAPD policy until she released an “impartial audit,” and they could blast LAPD for losing the funds. Hopefully it was just an oversight on her part, as she claims — but that would mean she’s much less informed about what’s been happening than she claims.

The good thing is there’s finally attention to the issue.