Antonio Villaraigosa

Wear This, Antonio

The mayor and some constituents

Let’s cut a deal with Mayor Villaraigosa. We’ll grant his outlandish request to stop prying into the real reasons for his marriage breakup, and consider his broken relationship with Corina a private matter, if he’ll start wearing an ankle bracelet around the clock.
Or, better yet, consent to having a video cam pointed at himself 24/7 to provide a lasting record of his work improving Los Angeles. The indefatigable mayor claims to sleep only three hours a night, which leaves much of the day to deal with city business outside the ordinary news cycles of the region’s media. We want to witness history in the making via our laptops.
Trust us, Mr. Mayor
, we’ll be discrete. It’s not that we have any interest in the affairs of your heart. We don’t. Nor are we out to impose any pre-Schwarzenegger moral code on how you spend your free time. But we do want to make sure that you stay focused on the affairs of the city and address the crises of the day in a productive way. We don’t want your administration to be sidetracked and destroyed by a meaningless Monica Lewinsky-style scandal. Too many people are dying from respiratory illnesses, too many students are failing to be inspired by their public school teachers and too many young men are shooting each other on our streets. Too much is at stake to let up the pressure on achieving our goals in the next two years.
Let’s face it: A politician’s extra-curricular affairs can be distracting for us and politicians alike. Do you really think the mayor is thinking about how to improve public education right now? Is he doing anything to halt gang violence? Unlikely. It’s hard to imagine the mayor and his advisers spending less than half of their time figuring out how to keep a lid on the marital breakup story.
It’s easy to imagine, however, that a good number of people at City Hall already know who’s to blame for the breakup. If we’re talking about an affair, or more than one, chances are the mayor’s LAPD driver and security detail and top aides know the names of the women. And if one cop knows, so does Chief Bratton and the hierarchy of the police union. Don’t be looking for the mayor to cross the police anytime soon or make any waves as the vote nears on the chief’s second term.
Intimate information in the hands of a few can be powerful. On the other hand, if the mayor tells the full story now, it’s unlikely any of the salacious details could ever be used against him. The re-election of a repeat sexual predator as governor neutered the morality police.
It’s nice that the mayor called a news conference this week to take responsibility for his marriage’s end. But that’s not the sort of press conference that will lead to solving the huge problems facing the city. We want the mayor to explain how he’s going to reduce pollution at the port and, at the same time, allow it to expand.

We want the mayor to present a transportation plan that shows his vision for improving L.A.’s light rail and subway system. We want details on cost, and where the money will come from, and how he’s going to rally support at the county, state and federal levels. We want to hear the mayor explain how he’s going to make accident-waiting-to-happen LAX safer and, at the same time, not destroy surrounding neighborhoods and break longstanding promises with residents.

When it comes to his troubled relationships, his estrangement from Corina is not the most important one. We want the mayor to tell us how he’s reaching out to Zev, the county supervisor and his nemesis on the MTA board, whose help he’ll need if he’s ever going to build the Subway to the Sea.
It might just be that the mayor has taken his eyes off the ball for too long. Would a more focused mayor have fallen for the legally flawed school takeover plan that circumvented the state constitution?

Come on, Antonio, start wearing the video cam and prove to us that you are indeed a full-time mayor committed to solving the monumental ills facing Angelenos. We promise to delete any personal shots.

14 Comments

  • Will it be okay if the mayor simply wags his finger at us and says that he did not have sex with that woman? But, with the pressure demanded of him, I can see where he might need some temporary non-work relief. May I suggest a Dodgers game, instead?

    The mayor can’t fix a city that is so broken. It’s like putting Humpty Dumpty together again. You ask more than is possible. Split up L.A. into eight or ten small cities and beak up the LAUSD with it. It’s easier to eat an elephant a piece at a time than all at once.

  • Is it time to finally say that James Hahn was a better mayor. And one of the reasons, Woody, was he fought City succession – one of the really stupid, and racist, ideas of the last twenty years.

    In fact what LA County needs is a County mayor. We have over ten million here and the problems of transportation, schools, pollution, sprawl and other blights don’t stop at city limits.

  • People wanting to control their own lives is not racism. New cities have sprung up around Atlanta out of Fulton County, because Fulton County seized tax money from those people and passed it to other, more politically opportunistic, areas (plus, the money was mismanaged) and Fulton County ignored the needs of the more affluent areas.

    But, your solution, rlc, is to make the governing body even bigger, when the problem seems to be that it is already too big.

    Simplify, simplify.

  • Yikes, Alan. T’would seem you have called the man out. If I were an Angeleno, I think I’d take a pass on those cam shots. As in, I’m not sure I really want to know.

  • Bribing Congress
    On the subject of our elected representatives not doing their jobs, I am posting the list of CA congress and senators taking bribes, not quite like William Jefferson who put his bribes in the refrigerator, instead these elected representatives funneled their bribes (disused as campaign contributions) to their spouses and children.

    CALIFORNIA LIST:

    Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.), son;
    Zoe Lofgren (D-Calif.), husband’s law firm; John Doolittle (R-Calif.), wife;
    Pete Stark (D-Calif.), wife;
    Jim Costa (D-Calif.), cousin;
    Bob Filner (D-Calif.), wife;
    Howard Berman (D-Calif.), brother Michael’s political consulting firm;
    Buck McKeon (R-Calif.), wife;
    Dana Rohrabacher (R-Calif.), wife;
    Richard Pombo (R-Calif.), wife and two brothers;
    Elton Gallegly (R-Calif.), wife;

    As you can see by the list CA leads the country in corruption. It is illegal for a congressman to take a donation and put it in their bank account (that would be like a bribe), but to get around this little bribery law these congressman and Barbara Boxer employ their relatives for 100’s of thousands of dollars per year, which goes right into their bank accounts.

    REST of LIST:

    Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), wife and step-daughter;
    Ralph Hall (R-Texas), daughter-in-law;
    Ron Lewis (R-Ky.), wife;
    Bart Stupak (D-Mich.), wife;
    Dave Reichert (R-Wash.), nephew;
    Chris Cannon (R-Utah), three daughters;
    Lincoln Davis (D-Tenn.), sister-in-law and daughter;
    Louie Gohmert (R-Texas), wife;
    Tim Bishop (D-N.Y.), daughter;
    J.D. Hayworth (R-Ariz.), wife;
    Bob Inglis (R-S.C.), wife;
    Sherwood Boehlert (R-N.Y.), wife;
    John Sweeney (R-N.Y.), wife;
    Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.), wife;
    Ed Pastor (D-Ariz.), nephew;
    John Shadegg (R-Ariz.), son;

    Source: Outrage / Dick Morris

  • Grea job Alan,

    Your worse than the media whors who are all over the Paris Hilton story to increase their visibility. Now as a washed up editor at LA CREEPY you write this post to increase your visibility — good for your ego.

    I think if we look at today’s LA Times we see that the headline reads “LA City Attorney Ducks Questions…” If the Mayor had let stand his paper release on friday and not talk to reporters on Monday, we’d be reading headlines that say the same thing about the Mayor that the City Attorney has today. I’d say the Mayor and his team aren’t over thinking anything, they have handled this in a genius like manner.

    In fact, there are zero stories about it, because mature people are over it, but apparently your immature ego and need for attention couldn’t let people have personal lives.

  • Good grief, Steve. Lighten up. By writing here, Alan is doing a favor for a friend on a new and still developing site, and that hardly has anything to do with his ego. Look at it this way. He has to put up with Pokey and me, and who would want that aggravation just for a small amount of notice?

  • What Woody said, Steve. Alan’s got a point, and at least he’s making it. Puts him ahead of the “hear no evil, see no evil, speak no evil” chicken-feces blogger crowd in my state that chose to look the other way as our govenor’s marriage imploded and the state’s finances tanked. Meanwhile our gov took his media privilege to speak of his need for privacy and compassion as every civil servant who trailed his day-to-day work week snickered up their sleeves and mopped up the mess behind him.

  • Alan, I thought your post was great, and I have no doubt that the dirty details of the affair will all come out in the wash at an inopportune time for the Mayor. It is wiser to face these things head on, tell your version of the truth or else you will have to contend someone else’s version.

    I had high hopes for the Mayor when he took on the LAUSD head on (even though legally questionable) and was saddened that he did not get an opportunity to try and remake the school system in LA that is so deeply flawed.

    But, I am with you on expanding the light rail system in LA and OC. We have a beautiful train station (Historic Place) here in Fullerton CA, which my wife and I have both used extensively. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fullerton_(Amtrak_station)

  • Who is getting more action: David Colby or Mayor Antonio?

    And then who is paying for Tony’s philandering?

  • Great post Alan. But I take issue with Steve when he says “people are over it.” NO THEY’RE NOT. This story is posted on tons of blogs and everyone is chiming in. If Mayor Villaraigosa had some accomplishments behind him then the people wouldn’t care. Problem is he hasn’t done anything but be in front of cameras making promises. Trust me everyone in city hall knows the name of woman because the 4th and 3rd floors are gossip havens. Also, there seems to be a patter with the Mayor and women. I’m glad finally the local media is reporting it. When the mayoral campaign was in full swing none of the newspapers, tv, radio or any media outlets reported the Mayor’s baggage. Thanks to blogs it was posted so when he decided to make a statement when already knew.

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