L.A. CITY HALL: March 8 ballot measures, analysis/overview; CD14 election, "poll position"; LAUSD elections, fundraising

***Analysis/overview of the March 8 ballot measures. A look at the CD14 election, how the candidates may be looking to frame their campaign themes. LAUSD elections, fundraising for the mayor's slate of candidates....

* Los Angeles Times:  "Efforts to right L.A.'s finances highlight March ballot" - "Scaling back pensions for future police and fire hires, carving out more money for libraries and reining in the DWP's power are among measures' goals." - From the LAT:

  In better times, Los Angeles city elections have served as vehicles for leaders' ambitious ideas — from expanding the city's solar energy capacity to building more than two dozen new libraries. This spring's contest testifies to an era in which city leaders cannot afford new promises and are having trouble keeping ones already made. The times are most clearly reflected in a series of measures on the March 8 ballot aimed at putting the city's finances on firmer ground.

   Among them: a bid to scale back pension benefits for future hires in the fire and police departments, an effort to carve out more money for hard-hit libraries, another to prevent raids on the reserve fund, and two measures that could rein in the power of the Department of Water and Power, whose leaders infuriated City Council members last year by threatening to withhold a $73.5-million transfer that the council was counting on to balance the budget.

   "This election is going to be about a reform agenda, putting the city back on track and giving the residents of Los Angeles faith in their government," said City Council President Eric Garcetti, who is campaigning for the library measure, among others. "In communities around Los Angeles, people are very focused on defining what [the city's] core services are."

   In a year in which there are no citywide races and incumbents are facing underfunded opponents in five of the seven council contests, the ballot campaigns also offer a hint of political intrigue. They test the persuasive powers of several potential contenders in the 2013 mayor's race, including Garcetti, Councilwoman Jan Perry, City Controller Wendy Greuel and state Sen. Alex Padilla (D-Pacoima) — all of whom plan to make the case to voters for certain initiatives over the next six weeks...........................

* Downtown News:  "Poll Position" - "When It Comes to Bruising Questions in the 14th District Election, What Matters Is Not What You Ask, But How You Ask It" - From the DTN:

   In the five weeks remaining until the March 8 election, voters in the 14th District may be repeatedly hit with three messages from the campaign of challenger Rudy Martinez:

   1) Martinez is the greatest American hero since Obamaman, having saved an entire family from a burning car while the rest of the huddled masses sat and watched, doing nothing. It’s a bird! It’s a politician! It’s SuperRudy!

   2) Incumbent José Huizar is just a shade shy of Beelzebub, with a propensity for using taxpayer money for his own benefit and for a Grinch-like pilfering of thousands of dollars from poor angelic nonprofits.

   3) One of the most pressing issues in the district is the need for more ducks in public parks, and SuperRudy is the one to make that happen.

   I hold these thingamajigs to be self-evident, because on Tuesday, Jan. 25, I spent about 20 minutes on the phone answering questions, many of them incredibly leading, for a pollster working for the Martinez campaign (I live in the district, and, lucky me, got a call). While the questioner never said he was part of Team Martinez — he only identified himself as with the firm California Opinion Research — the 19 zillion queries about Rudy as a guy who created hundreds of jobs, and the fiercely negative Huizar questions (more on those later), made it clear who the queries will ultimately benefit.

   ****

   When it comes to campaigns, polls with leading questions are de rigueur. You generally pay a firm a lot of money to provide whatever answers you hope to spin in a press release, while using the rest of the results to determine what to include in hit piece mailers.

   Huizar was the first one to strike with a poll. Over five days in late December, 400 district voters answered questions, leading to a Jan. 4 press release giving Huizar a 58%-15% lead over Martinez, with 27% of voters undecided. It ranked Huizar high in a number of demographic categories and basically said people love him as much as they do puppies and the movie Babe. Then again, he’s paying a Santa Monica polling firm $28,500 (according to campaign disclosure statements filed with the City Ethics Commission — and couldn’t he find someone in the city of Los Angeles for the job?), meaning he got what he paid for, or paid for what he got, whichever way you want to put it..........................

* Los Angeles Times:  "Producer, stadium developers donate to group backing Villaraigosa's school board candidates" - "Stephen Bing and Anschutz Corp., whose sister firm wants to build a football stadium in downtown L.A., join familiar names in the fundraising wars over school reform." - From the LAT:

   Developers seeking city approval to build a football stadium downtown as well as Democratic financier and producer Stephen Bing were among the major contributors to a committee set up to support Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa's favored candidates for the Los Angeles Board of Education, new filings show.

   Bing and the Anschutz Corp. joined familiar names in the fundraising wars over school reform, including philanthropist Eli Broad ($150,000), former Mayor Richard Riordan ($25,000) and Spanish-language media executive Jerry Perenchio ($250,000). All told, the informal Villaraigosa slate — he is actively raising money for three candidates but has yet to endorse them officially — has collected more than $1 million on behalf of Tamar Galatzan, Luis Sanchez and Richard Vladovic.

   Villaraigosa's drive to maintain control of the school board is expected to take center stage March 8, when four of seven board seats will be on the ballot. In a recent speech, Villaraigosa branded the teachers union, United Teachers Los Angeles, an obstacle to reform. The mayor began raising money about a month ago, seeking donations from as far afield as New York and Chicago, an aide said.

   ****

   Some of the largesse may relate to issues before the city. The Anschutz Corp. donated $100,000 to the Coalition for School Reform. Its sister company AEG has a plan before the city for a privately financed $1-billion stadium next to Staples Center. "Our education system is a mess and Phil [Anschutz] wants to help" said Tim Leiweke, president and chief executive of AEG. Leiweke said the mayor spoke directly with Anschutz, the corporation's chairman.

   Four other entities that contributed a total of $100,000 to the Coalition for School Reform — AP Properties Ltd., APDS1 Properties LLC, 78 Development LLC and the Constellation Land Ltd. Partnership — listed the same Chicago-based address as JMB Realty Corp., a major landlord and developer in Century City. City records list JMB Realty as being affiliated with AP Properties. Several years ago, Villaraigosa's appointees on the Planning Commission approved JMB's proposal for two 47-story condominium buildings in Century City. The project has not yet been built....................

AFTERNOON MEMOS: Jerry Brown orders reduction in state vehicle fleet; L.A. City Council votes to sue LAUSD officer accused of filing false shooting report; Oakland police chief, finalist for San Jose chief, says he was not selected to make the move....

* Sacramento Bee:  "Jerry Brown orders reduction of state vehicle fleet" - From the Bee:

   Gov. Jerry Brown this afternoon ordered state agencies to stop buying new cars and to return any that aren't essential, a measure he said could cut the state's passenger vehicle fleet in half. Cars that aren't needed will be sold, the governor's office said.

   "There is a lot of wasteful spending on cars that aren't even driven," Brown said in a written statement. "And we can't afford to spend taxpayer money on new cars while California faces such a massive deficit." Brown, who previously issued an executive order recalling thousands of state-issued cell phones, said in the written statement, "Fifty percent is a starting point. If we find more waste, we'll make more cuts."

   The governor's office estimated there are 11,000 state passenger cars and trucks that are not used for health or public safety jobs, and about 4,500 permits allowing employees to use cars for their daily commutes..........

* Los Angeles Times:  "L.A. City Council votes to sue school police officer accused of falsely triggering manhunt" - From the LAT:

   The Los Angeles City Council voted Friday to file a lawsuit against the school police officer accused of making up a story about being shot by an assailant near El Camino High School, triggering a vast and expensive police manhunt.

   The council unanimously passed an emergency motion to demand that Jeffrey Stenroos, an eight-year veteran of the Los Angeles Unified School District police force, reimburse the city for the costs of the search, which involved not only the Los Angeles Police Department but city traffic officers, the county Sheriff's Department, the California Highway Patrol and the FBI, among others.

   ****

   The lawsuit was proposed by Councilman Dennis Zine, a former police officer. "We need to send a message that a person who's sworn to protect an dserve cannot do this, and there's consequences for that activity", Zine said.

* San Francisco Chronicle:  "San Jose doesn't hire Oakland Chief Anthony Batts" - From the Chronicle:

      

   Oakland Police Chief Anthony Batts will apparently not be going to San Jose after San Jose City Manager Debra Figone chose acting Police Chief Chris Moore to be the permanent chief.

   Batts on Thursday said he was not selected for the job, but left his next step in question. "It still needs to be determined if I am a fit for the city of Oakland's vision of the future," Batts said in a statement. "I continue to have concerns surrounding the support and resources being provided and am committed to doing whatever is required to fix the broken systems within this agency."

   Figone's decision is not final. Figone will present her choice to the  San Jose City Council in closed session Tuesday, according to Tom Manheim, a city spokesman. The council must approve Moore for the job. Batts and Moore were the two finalists for the position, but Batts' name on the list had roiled Oakland city leaders, who didn't even know he would consider leaving.................

POLITICS: New Sacramento job for former L.A. City Hall senior staffer....

* Rob Wilcox, former Deputy Controller (Director of Communications) for L.A. City Controller Laura Chick and more recently Chief of Staff to Chick in her role as Inspector General for American Recovery and Investment Act Funds coming to California, has just been named as Communications Director for the California Citizens Redistricting Commission. Chick, whose position was eliminated by new Gov. Jerry Brown, has moved to the Bay Area; Wilcox opted to remain in Sacramento. 

Wilcox starts in the new position on February 7.

Congratulations, Rob, and best of luck in the new job!!!

POLITICS (State, Local, National): Obama effort to reorganize government, "an uphill battle"; Andrew Cuomo's "kitchen diplomacy"; Bell, finances worse than thought; California PUC Foundation (editorial)....

***Politics on the state, local and national scene, including:  Challenges that might lie ahead (uphill battle") for Pres. Obama's effort to reorganize goverment; NY Gov. Andrew Cuomo's "kitchen diplomacy": Bell, budget deficit may double, to more than $4 million by end of June; California PUC Foundation (editorial)....

* Washington Post:  "History shows Obama's effort to reorganize government could be an uphill battle" - From the WP:

   If you want to know what President Obama is up against with his pledge to reorganize the federal government, consider what happened to the last such endeavor.

   After the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, nearly two dozen agencies were melded into the new Department of Homeland Security, to better coordinate the government's resources for handling terrorism and other national emergencies. But the members of Congress overseeing those agencies were loath to give up any authority. That is why DHS gets marching orders from more than 100 congressional committees and subcommittees - a number that has grown in the past seven years, despite the 9/11 Commission's recommendation that those tangled lines of authority be consolidated.

   And although experts have long called for one agency to handle food safety, that has not happened, in large part because neither the secretary of agriculture nor the secretary of health and human services is willing to cede the job to the other..........................

* New York Times:  "Cuomo Works to Build Rapport at Home"- From the NYT:

   On the menu for the Assembly speaker, Sheldon Silver, and the State Senate majority leader, Dean G. Skelos, was a tossed salad, chicken and a sober conversation about the state’s grim financial prognosis. For Republican members of the Senate, it was sliders and wine and a call to arms to cut spending and shun new taxes. For Democratic members of the Assembly, it was bagels and lox and a delicate discussion about ending the income tax surcharge on wealthy New Yorkers.

   Call it Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo’s kitchen diplomacy....................

* Los Angeles Times:  "Bell official says city's finances worse than thought" - "The interim city administraor says the projected deficit could more than double to over $4 million by the end of June. He cites one-time costs, including legal bills stemming from the salary scandal." - From the LAT:

   As the Bell City Council prepared to debate drastic budget cuts Thursday night to stave off bankruptcy, the city's top administrator said its finances were even more desperate than suspected and were worsening because of extraordinary legal bills and other costs facing the scandal-scarred city. "The city has reached a financial crossroad," wrote Pedro Carrillo, Bell's interim chief administrative officer. "While the recommendations set forth in this report require difficult decisions to be made, without these actions, the city will likely be forced into insolvency."

   A county audit released earlier this month said the city would face a $2.16-million deficit at the end of the fiscal year in June. Carrillo's report, however, said the figure could more than double because of one-time costs, including legal bills stemming from the salary scandal that has enveloped the city...................

* San Francisco Chronicle (editorial):  "California PUC, foundation are too cozy" - From the Chronicle:

   Californians who love their state parks can donate their time and money to a foundation that is dedicated to enhancing the facilities and educational offerings, from restoring wetlands to establishing a junior ranger program. So why shouldn't the California Public Utilities Commission have a foundation of its own? Let us count the ways this is a bad idea:

   The missions of these two government endeavors are so inherently different that to suggest that a state PUC foundation could be modeled after the State Parks Foundation - as creators of the PUC foundation claim, with a straight face - is simply laughable.

   The state parks foundation has raised more than $160 million since 1969, much of it from Californians who regularly visit parks. No one packs up the family in a minivan to go to a PUC meeting. The folks who are most likely to contribute to its foundation are the utilities that are regulated by the commission....................

MORNING MEMOS: CD8 and CD14 fundraising; AEG stadium; California's tax structure; opposition to siting of cell tower in local San Fernando Valley neighborhood; California High-Speed Rail Authority board overseas travel....

***Various items here, including CD8 and CD14 fundraising; AEG football arena; California's tax structure; opposition to siting of cell tower in a local neighborhood;. California High-Speed Rail Authority board overseas travel.....

* Los Angeles Times:  "L.A. Councilmen Huizar, Parks still outpace foes in fundraising" - "The latest filings show Huizar ahead of challenger Rudy Martinez in money gathered. Parks raises more than rival Forescee Hogan-Rowles."

* Daily News (editorial):  "Council should not bend rules to build AEG football arena"

* Sacramento Bee (Dan Walters):  "California tinkering on tax reform isn't enough"

* Daily News:  "Neighbors win T-Mobile tower fight"

* Los Angeles Times:  "Panel clears members of high-speed rail board after investigation into overseas trips" - "The Fair Political Practices Commission has cleared members of the California High-Speed Rail Authority board after an investigation into overseas trips and whether they were properly disclosed."