Comments on: When the City Has $$ Trouble, Should the LAPD’s #s Be Cut?

By: Janet

Janet — Wed, 16 Sep 2009 16:44:50 +0000

Good dialogue boys. First let’s not forget Mayor Hahn included in his budget back in 2003 to add 320 cops. But can you believe those arrogant council members voted NO and Antonio was part of the group. Mayor Hahn wanted to put on ballot a 1/2 cent sales tax for police late 2003. The council voted NO including Antonio again even though when Sheriff Baca tried to do it for the entire county and %’s from the city were all in favor. Baca’s lost out by only 2% points. Antonio and city council were deceitful saying the trash fee hike was for police. Its been increased twice and now they want to do it again because of all the pipe breaks. Over $137 million of that trash fee hike goes directly into general fund. Antonio only wants to get to 10,000 police so he can say its his only big accomplishment even though its well known throughout the department that officers do not like him or any of our politicians. They go to their funerals for photo ops but how often do you see them support them in the media? Hardly ever.

By: Sisco

Sisco — Wed, 16 Sep 2009 15:40:36 +0000

Woody, still wouldn’t work. Dumb, unrealistic idea.

By: Gava Joe

Gava Joe — Wed, 16 Sep 2009 14:55:12 +0000

Rob Thomas can kiss my ass. That degenerate fool is a friend of Pee Wee Herman on Facebook.

By: Woody

Woody — Wed, 16 Sep 2009 12:41:56 +0000

Hey, I’m not saying that the people in high crime areas have to pay for more police any more than the anyone else saying that they have to have collision insurance on their cars. But, if they want the protection, they (those who need it) would have to pay for it. If they can’t afford the costs of more police, then make do rather than tell others to pay for the problems of their own making.

By: WBC

WBC — Wed, 16 Sep 2009 08:23:45 +0000

Kelvin, just read your comment a little more carefully, and don’t see how Trutanich (who you regularly speak up for) was right saying the ERIP plan would have worked a few months ago but now it’s too late. The opposite seems to be true: that we’d have been locked into a bad situation, given new numbers and continued decline in revenue.

MAYBE the mayor, Garcetti and all the rest of them should have been tougher then about furloughs and layoffs (and no doubt the whole bunch including the self-styled budget hawks like Parks, Zine, Smith, and the CFO/CLA whoever, should have sent out sirens years ago), but it’s NOT true that the June proposal would have worked out splendidly if etched in stone at the time, and frankly, it’s dumb for Trutanich to say that when he’s supposed to defend the Mayor’s position vs. a likely lawsuit from the unions.

Sounds like he is, like you, more focused on the mayor with hatred and on grandstanding even when he makes no sense, than focused on what’s best for the city. (All while he announced right off the bat, as reported here, that he wants to ADD 200 cops fully equipped with cars and fancy gadgets, and admits he’d need to hire upto 100 high-priced specialist lawyers — Rocky had allowed half that to fade away by attrition, as ordered for budgetary reasons — before the ofc. can actually handle more in-house cases. Right now, he’s still farming them out to the same firms, whatever he claims.) DON’T get me started on this guy, I wish there were a one-way slow bus to Alabama for him.

By: WBC

WBC — Wed, 16 Sep 2009 08:13:38 +0000

Kelvin, hello, hello. the mayor is the one adamantly opposed to cutting the #’s of cops at LAPD; re-read the Editorial, for once they get it mostly right: this is about his wanting to keep his promise to grow the force to 10,000 (and he’s fought to put the tripled trash fees toward same, at least to public safety vs just being swept into Gen’l Fund), while the PPL is what’s more analagous to how Baca’s operating. The PPL wants to retain all current benefits, salaries & perks, while the Mayor (as editorial details) says sorry, we have to cut back for now, which will allow us to retain the officers we have on duty and expand to the min. nec’y number, until the overall budget situation improves. — It’s the PPL and LAFD Union/ Pat McOsker that you need to address your grievances to.

(I’m not defending the mayor here per se, but just insofar as he’s echoing what Bratton says and wants — as Randy Paul says, our numbers vs. NYC are ridiculous, and it’s amazing that Bratton’s as successful as he’s been w/ his Comstat or whatever it’s called, the shuttling around business. But that’s wearying for the cops and for the communities.)

By: Sisco

Sisco — Wed, 16 Sep 2009 07:09:45 +0000

“Mayor of Failure” is so catchy, Kelvin.

By: Sisco

Sisco — Wed, 16 Sep 2009 07:08:16 +0000

No, I don’t live in Watts.

By: Kelvin

Kelvin — Wed, 16 Sep 2009 06:21:38 +0000

The Mayor’s threat to cut LAPD is a typical chicken-s***t response and exactly what I would expect from the egocentric fool we allowed into the Mayor’s Office. Villaraigosa is doing the the same thing the Sheriff does when his budget is threatened; he says he’ll have to let more people out of jail. Usually that strategy succeeds in forcing the County to come up with the necessary Benjamins to solve the problem. Unfortunately for the Mayor of Failure, the man who couldn’t pass the Bar Exam, there’s nobody to force into providing more money for a failed City.
Cutting LAPD and Fire services will only do one thing, it will make life worse for those who are least able to protect themselves, and by that I mean the regular people who live in the north, south and east of Los Angeles. The Westside will just hire more wannabe cops aka private security firms.
So our Chicken-S***t Mayor of Failure will continue to photo-op his way through the destruction of the City’s finances with more pathetic platitudes like “Shared Sacrifice” and will bail out of Los Angeles before the end of his term to take up some highly paid job as a lobbyist for SEIU – they own him anyway.
Trutanich was right when he said the ERIP solution would have worked if the Mayor had the muscle to make it happen when it was first talked about. Now it is too little, too late. The Mayor could no more get the unions to agree to ERIP than he could convince that bunch of hand wringing indecisive useless council members to do something, anything, to solve the City’s problem.
The problem is really not that hard to understand; the City pays out $1M more than it receives, every week. It pays out most of it’s budget in salaries. LAPD and the Fire Dept are but only 2 of many other City departments, and it’s in those departments where the deepest cuts need to be made. Slash Parks & Rec, Building & Safety, Department of Transport, and the City’s own private police force, and you can balance the budget no problem. But this Mayor hasn’t got the brains or guts to do it.
And before I finish, let’s talk about that ‘Shared Sacrifice’ crap. First of all, I wonder how much the Mayor’s Office paid to some friendly PR company to come up with that meaningless catch-phrase? Second, why is it that the Mayor’s Office has expanded it’s staff of highly paid deputies and assistants by 26%? Where’s the Shared Sacrifice there?
Los Angeles Magazine was right to put Villaraigosa on their front cover with the word “Failure” across him. That’s what he is, a good time Charlie, and a abject failure when times are hard.

By: RobThomas

RobThomas — Wed, 16 Sep 2009 06:04:28 +0000

Sisco, do you live in Watt’s???