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Three different stories all showing how messed up California is. From unwillingness to cut spending, to outrages spending by government employees and off course big business bailouts.
http://reason.com/blog/2011/03/21/ca...licans-cant-ev
On to the next story:
http://reason.com/blog/2011/03/22/yo...-at-work-payin
Finally, the most outrages story:
http://reason.com/blog/2011/03/22/ev...te-expense-acc
California Republicans Can’t Even Do Wrong Right
Tim Cavanaugh | March 21, 2011
At CalWatchdog, Steven Greenhut catches Republicans “on the side of big government, higher taxes and uncontrolled debt and against property rights, individualism and freedom.” His proof? The Assembly GOP’s vote last week on Gov. Jerry Brown’s plan to phase out redevelopment agencies.
Brown wants to eliminate the state’s 400 redevelopment agencies (RDAs). The Republicans – who continue to find new ways to lose in California – have only 27 out of 80 Assembly seats. That gives them no leverage on budget votes, which now require a straight majority rather than two-thirds. But it’s still enough to make a difference in emergency budget bills like this one, which do require a two-thirds majority. So during a week in which the Republicans allowed all manner of big-spending budget provisions to go by, how did they do on the one vote that could have helped California property owners and small business people? Greenhut counts the votes:
Tim Cavanaugh | March 21, 2011
At CalWatchdog, Steven Greenhut catches Republicans “on the side of big government, higher taxes and uncontrolled debt and against property rights, individualism and freedom.” His proof? The Assembly GOP’s vote last week on Gov. Jerry Brown’s plan to phase out redevelopment agencies.
Brown wants to eliminate the state’s 400 redevelopment agencies (RDAs). The Republicans – who continue to find new ways to lose in California – have only 27 out of 80 Assembly seats. That gives them no leverage on budget votes, which now require a straight majority rather than two-thirds. But it’s still enough to make a difference in emergency budget bills like this one, which do require a two-thirds majority. So during a week in which the Republicans allowed all manner of big-spending budget provisions to go by, how did they do on the one vote that could have helped California property owners and small business people? Greenhut counts the votes:
[O]nly longtime redevelopment foe, Chris Norby of Fullerton, sided with taxpayers and property owners. The rest of the Assembly Republicans voted “no” or didn’t vote at all. Had even one of the Republicans joined Norby, the bill would have passed with a two-thirds majority. There may still be time, but the GOP is too busy celebrating that it stopped Brown on this one issue. They put partisanship above their own ideology. They stopped Brown in one of the few areas where Brown was right...
Redevelopment is about everything Republicans claim to loath: bureaucracy, debt, abuses of property rights, big government, excessive land-use rules, subsidized housing and fiscal irresponsibility. In California cities, redevelopment bureaucrats rule the roost and they leave a path of destruction wherever they go. They bully people and impose enormous burdens on taxpayers. The diversion of tax dollars to welfare queens mandates higher taxes, but the GOP sided with the redevelopment industry. They sided with agencies that run up hundreds of millions of dollars in taxpayer-backed indebtedness. They sided with government-directed stimulus programs, albeit local ones rather than federal ones.
The truth is California Republicans do not believe in limited government. They do not stand up for property owners. They are the party of corporate welfare.
It’s hard to overstate how grotesque this vote was. Jerry Brown has gone against many longtime supporters on this issue. He has surprisingly brought together support from a coalition of state Democrats, including Controller John Chiang, who is taking a hard look at the day-to-day criminality of the RDAs.
Redevelopment is about everything Republicans claim to loath: bureaucracy, debt, abuses of property rights, big government, excessive land-use rules, subsidized housing and fiscal irresponsibility. In California cities, redevelopment bureaucrats rule the roost and they leave a path of destruction wherever they go. They bully people and impose enormous burdens on taxpayers. The diversion of tax dollars to welfare queens mandates higher taxes, but the GOP sided with the redevelopment industry. They sided with agencies that run up hundreds of millions of dollars in taxpayer-backed indebtedness. They sided with government-directed stimulus programs, albeit local ones rather than federal ones.
The truth is California Republicans do not believe in limited government. They do not stand up for property owners. They are the party of corporate welfare.
On to the next story:
Your Tax Dollars at Work, Paying Rent for Bankrupt Bookstores Matt Welch | March 22, 2011
This is but a single example of the kind of bankrupt government/development corporate welfare "deals" that get done constantly by objectively evil Redevelopment Agencies, this time in Pico Rivera, California:
This is but a single example of the kind of bankrupt government/development corporate welfare "deals" that get done constantly by objectively evil Redevelopment Agencies, this time in Pico Rivera, California:
The city spent $1.6 million in federal grant money to bring Borders into the Pico Rivera Towne Center and to help pay its rent for nearly eight years.
Now the bookstore at 8852 Washington Blvd. is among the 200 Borders stores closing by April in the wake of the company filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy reorganization.
But the city still faces paying rent on the soon-to-be vacated 18,100-square-foot site, along with other costs associated with 2002 agreements it made with Borders and with Vestar Development Co., which owns the Towne Center.
If Borders leaves, the contract with Vestar requires the city to pay the company $33,932.91 a month for 72 months until a new tenant comes in. Vestar will get the money on the condition it is making "commercially reasonable efforts" to secure a new tenant for the site, according to the wording of the agreement.
How many more where that came from, I wonder?
Now the bookstore at 8852 Washington Blvd. is among the 200 Borders stores closing by April in the wake of the company filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy reorganization.
But the city still faces paying rent on the soon-to-be vacated 18,100-square-foot site, along with other costs associated with 2002 agreements it made with Borders and with Vestar Development Co., which owns the Towne Center.
If Borders leaves, the contract with Vestar requires the city to pay the company $33,932.91 a month for 72 months until a new tenant comes in. Vestar will get the money on the condition it is making "commercially reasonable efforts" to secure a new tenant for the site, according to the wording of the agreement.
Finally, the most outrages story:
Eviction Vigilante + Expense Account Queens = L.A. Government
Tim Cavanaugh | March 22, 2011
Jessica Garrison reports on a government official who spent taxpayer money on a $30,000 home improvement, tried to evict tenants who protested his policies, and yet may not be the worst person in the story.
L.A. Housing Authority Chief Executive Rudolf Montiel was fired by the Authority board yesterday:
Last week we saw how CalPERS CEO Federico Buenrostro blew a placement agent's dollars on gambling and overseas junkets. In this case, food appears to have been the weakness of the Housing Authority board members, whose $158,000 expense-account binge included four-figure meals with fancy Brazilian cocktails. For his part, the fired Montiel spent $30,000 of the people of California's money on a home security system.
For my money Montiel's retaliatory evictions are more troubling than the board members' fairly standard featherbedding. You could make the case that since there is no “right” to public housing, tenancy on the taxpayer dime could require you to surrender certain rights, including the right to protest outside officials’ homes. But there’s nothing in the law or court precedent to back that up, and Montiel’s attempt to evict tenant protesters is a pretty clear abuse of authority. It also happened five months ago, yet the board didn’t bother firing him until he went after them.
That may or may not be another retaliatory gesture. In any event, rotten people like these are the kind of bacteria that thrive in the sewer of L.A. politics.
Tim Cavanaugh | March 22, 2011
Jessica Garrison reports on a government official who spent taxpayer money on a $30,000 home improvement, tried to evict tenants who protested his policies, and yet may not be the worst person in the story.
L.A. Housing Authority Chief Executive Rudolf Montiel was fired by the Authority board yesterday:
The move comes less than six months after Montiel faced the wrath of city leaders when his agency tried to evict nine tenants who had protested housing authority policies at Montiel's Rancho Cucamonga home. At the time, City Council members called Montiel "childlike" and accused him of acting like "Big Brother." The eviction notices were later rescinded.
Montiel has headed the agency — and its $1-billion-a-year budget — since 2004.
The termination also follows Montiel's request this month that board members return thousands of dollars in "double-dipped" costs or travel expenses submitted without authorization or receipts.
Commissioners took per diems for travel expenses but also charged meals, sometimes extravagant ones including disallowed alcoholic drinks, to their agency credit cards, according to a CBS-TV Channel 2 report in February. The commissioners reported spending more than $150,000 over the last two years on travel and food, the station reported.
Full story. The L.A. Times still uses Decade Zero-era autolinking, in which phrases like "Big Brother" and "CBS-TV Channel 2" take readers hungry for more information to archival coverage of respectively, the TV show Big Brother and CBS Corp. So you'll have to use your Farnsworth Machine to watch Alvivon Hurd's original CBS coverage of the double-dipping scandal.Montiel has headed the agency — and its $1-billion-a-year budget — since 2004.
The termination also follows Montiel's request this month that board members return thousands of dollars in "double-dipped" costs or travel expenses submitted without authorization or receipts.
Commissioners took per diems for travel expenses but also charged meals, sometimes extravagant ones including disallowed alcoholic drinks, to their agency credit cards, according to a CBS-TV Channel 2 report in February. The commissioners reported spending more than $150,000 over the last two years on travel and food, the station reported.
Last week we saw how CalPERS CEO Federico Buenrostro blew a placement agent's dollars on gambling and overseas junkets. In this case, food appears to have been the weakness of the Housing Authority board members, whose $158,000 expense-account binge included four-figure meals with fancy Brazilian cocktails. For his part, the fired Montiel spent $30,000 of the people of California's money on a home security system.
For my money Montiel's retaliatory evictions are more troubling than the board members' fairly standard featherbedding. You could make the case that since there is no “right” to public housing, tenancy on the taxpayer dime could require you to surrender certain rights, including the right to protest outside officials’ homes. But there’s nothing in the law or court precedent to back that up, and Montiel’s attempt to evict tenant protesters is a pretty clear abuse of authority. It also happened five months ago, yet the board didn’t bother firing him until he went after them.
That may or may not be another retaliatory gesture. In any event, rotten people like these are the kind of bacteria that thrive in the sewer of L.A. politics.
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