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Herb Wesson: Will L.A.'s new City Council President Run a Mini State Legislature?
Had things gone a bit differently, Herb Wesson might have been a comedian. In fact, he tried his hand at stand-up comedy shortly after moving to Los Angeles.
ILLUSTRATION BY FRED HARPER
"I wasn't a very good one," he says with a laugh.
As a politician, Wesson is known as a lighthearted, entertaining glad-hander, capable of making a deal with almost anyone, if perhaps not exactly a man at the center of debates about government transparency and fiscal responsibility.
A short man (made to look all the shorter when seated next to towering Councilman Bill Rosendahl), Wesson is as charming as he is quirky. As a member of the California state Assembly, he was photographed pantomime swan-kicking (à la Karate Kid) a Chinese monk in the crotch. As a Los Angeles city councilman, every Friday (just before or after the City Council famously blows two or three hours awarding medieval parchment–sized certificates to various citizens), Wesson, in his own version of avoiding the heavy lifting and playing to the crowd, implores citizens to adopt a dog or cat, and he helpfully brings the pets to council chambers.
"If you would ever love to have a companion that will always be there for you when you need it, I can't think of a better one than this 3-year-old Chihuahua mix," he said a couple weeks ago, without irony. In his arms he held the dog, Jackie O., who was wearing what appeared to be a purple life preserver.
"If you were to put somebody at the steering wheel of the Titanic, Herb would be the perfect person," says Ron Kaye, activist and former editor of the Los Angeles Daily News. "He'd be cracking jokes. The whole bridge would be entertained."
Last Wednesday, the City Council voted unanimously, as it does so often, to hand over the powerful City Council presidency to Wesson.
As council president, like a mini speaker of the Assembly, Wesson will have the power to reward fellow council members with choice appointments to influential City Council committees — such as Planning and Land Use Management— or to stick fellow council members on backwater committees like Government Affairs.
He'll also have sway as the man who runs the City Council meetings, as did the risk-averse outgoing president, Eric Garcetti, who has held the post for nearly six years.
Garcetti's era saw little substantive debate. A think tank found that the 15 council members voted unanimously on 99.993 percent of their decisions in 2009, with the two most dissenting members voting no just four or five times — out of 1,854 votes.
In his acceptance speech, Wesson said repeatedly, "This is not about me. It's about we." But the "we" Wesson referred to was not "we the people" but "we the council."
His speech lavished praise upon his colleagues for having triumphed over adversity (everyone told Paul Koretz he'd never get elected to the Westside's District 5, Mitchell Englander's ancestors survived the Holocaust, etc.).
Wesson promised not to hog the spotlight or take credit for the council's achievements, such as they are.
Much has been made of the fact that black council members Bernard Parks, who was "sick," and Jan Perry, who had been "excused," did not attend Wesson's speech. Both, more likely than not, oppose the ascension of Wesson, who is also black.
"What we have to do is figure out a way to reinvent this city, deal with our financial crisis yet still provide the services that the people in this city expect," Wesson said after the vote, as hundreds of well-wishers and constituents filed into a hallway for a monstrous buffet that included a 40-pound roasted pig.
In 1998, Wesson was elected to the state Assembly, and four years later his colleagues chose him as California speaker, though not through any political talents of his own. An unofficial rule, created after Willie Brown's 15-year run as speaker came to an end, held that the speaker must hail from the L.A. area and the job must rotate between black and Latino politicians. The sole exception to that has been Bob Hertzberg.
But by 2002, there were only so many black Assembly members left. Wesson had been in Sacramento for four years, and thus it was his turn.
Wesson's short, mostly forgettable tenure as speaker, from 2002 to 2004, came at a time when the cracks in the state government's fiscal façade broke wide open. In 2003, angry voters recalled Gov. Gray Davis in the wake of rolling brownouts from a statewide energy crisis — and after Davis signed a budget that created a $25 billion deficit and called for tax increases.
Though personally well-liked, Wesson was not a much-admired speaker.
On the day Davis was set to unveil $10 billion in proposed budget cuts in 2002, Wesson was at a three-day conference in Maui hosted by the prison guards' union — which had just given $15,000 to his re-election campaign. The next year, Wesson was caught paying a Republican ex-legislator $8,000 a month for advice on "rodeo and racetrack" issues. When a public outcry arose, the ex-legislator said he was advising Wesson on farming.
Uninterested in policy or debates, Wesson smiled and jested his way through the disastrous fiscal crises of 2003 and '04, leaving the mess for subsequent speakers.
6 comments
Councilman Herb Wesson may have a happy-go-lucky appearance on the outside, but he is also a very sophisticated and seasoned politician who has worked in conjunction with Garcetti in Wesson's role as Chair of the Housing Community and Economic Development (HCED) Committee smoothing controversial projects such as 1601 N Vine through despite its obvious payoff to private developers with taxpayer funds.
As the 1601 N Vine Street project dragged on without any interference for 4-1/2 years (any delays the full responsibility of the then bankrupt developer Hal Katersky's Pacifica), a challenge by Molly's burger (which never went to court and only lasted only 4 months) uncovered an overpayment of public funds to the previous owner, Steve Ullman, and the lie by Garcetti and Katersky that the project was fully funded and "shovel ready."
Garcetti wisely turned things over to the HCED Committee to have Wesson smooth it over.
1601 N Vine paid a visit to Wesson's Committee twice (during a ping-pong session between the City Council, the CRA, and Wesson's Committee). The first time, Councilman Cardenas acted more like Perry Mason challenging the CRA over its role in a hidden appraisal which covered up a $1.4 million overpayment of public funds.
At the first visit Mayoral Candidate and Councilwoman Jan Perry, recused herself and then stated on the record that she was extremely supportive of the project (a direct violation of the meaning of a recusal). At that first visit, Wesson's committee didn't approve the project and instead sent it back to Garcetti who quickly tossed it back to the CRA.
When the project finally arrived back in Wesson's committee for the second time, more Council/Commitee members jumped on board questioning the appraisal issue, but then bent over backwards to exempt Katersky and going out of their way to kiss his ass.
In that second visit to the HCED Committee Wesson was able to deliver for Garcetti an UP vote.
Garcetti quickly took it to the City Council where Paul Krekorian was the only DOWN vote and the Developer, the Chamber of Commerce and Unions sung the praises of this phantom project.
The Developer quickly flipped the project after receiving entitlements which increased the value of the land - Enriching a private entity with the actions of the City Council and its Committees.
One could easily assume that Herb Wesson has been manuevered into the council presidency by outgoing council president Garcetti.
However, the absence of Councilmember Jan Perry and Council Bernard Parks as demonstration of disapproval deserves a nuanced interpretation.In the case of Parks, he cannot support a Council President whose very ethic is polar opposite of his own. Parks practices detailed number-crunching and scrutiny of council actions. Parks takes the time to do his homework, show up prepared, ask pertinent questions and raise well-considered reservations of proposed motions.Herb Wesson prefers playing politics as a game of hand-shaking, back-slapping and feel good patronage. Intricate legalistic details are just not Wesson's favorite part of the game. Or it just may be the case that Wesson's competence at literacy doesn't reach the level required to parse an average council motion.
In the case of Jan Perry, her show of disapproval of Wesson as the new Council President should be read as a function of her over-arching determination to win election as the next Mayor of Los Angeles. It should be obvious that any succesful candidate for Mayor of L.A. will need to cultivate the appearance of anti-status quo. Councilmember Perry - no doubt as much of the dealmaking insider as anyone - will undergo a carefully crafted transformation into the outsider, the reformer.
Herb Wesson should be considered a place-holder as Council President until the new power alignment in L.A. shakes out in the City General Election. Wesson is fortunate to have been gifted with a happy-go-lucky disposition. Los Angeles needs leadership which can be compared to granite, not the kind of helium Wesson floats upon.Wesson is not devious or malicious, but he is such feel-good lightweight that we should expect the thieves will have a field day pilfering the city silverware under Wesson's myopic daydreamy watch.
Does Wesson have a diamond tooth? If not, this is one of the most racist illustrations I have seen in long while. What next? Park with a bone through his nose?
Ok your picture is over the top and a tad on racial side. The rest of this I agree with. They don't call it the Clowncil for nothing. It is clearly a circus. More importantly and more sadly, LA's elected officials are so deep in bed with special interests there really is not much that can be done to save the City short of thousands of folks waking up and getting involved.
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