Buscaino vs. Furutani

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Rob Foreman

This is, of course, the gift of Term Limit.

joy mars

What is wrong with a politician being well-connected? It's not the same as being corrupt. Not by a long shot. It's what politician are supposed to be. Does anyone remember what happened to New Orleans when Katrina struck its un-connected newbie pols?

Give me a break, LAW — and The LA Times — this is just the only thing you can bitch about at the moment.

bob

koretz worked as an insurance adjuster so I don't think you can say he never had a private sector job

Vahagn Karmir Karapetyan

By the way, have you actually taken a look at the votes in city council? I have gone through a lot of the votes that the council takes on a daily bases and a CLEAR MAJORITY of the votes are procedural votes such as:

"Continued Consideration of Hearing Appeals or Objections to Building and Safety Department report and confirmation of lien to cover the cost of cleaning the lot at 10952 North Whitaker Avenue."

"Continued Consideration of Hearing Appeals or Objections to Building and Safety Department report and confirmation of lien to cover the costs of barricading of all openings and cleaning and fencing of the lot at 3029 North Eva Terrace"

'Ordinance Second Consideration relative to a 15-year lease and the sale of an access easement to Randy W. and Becky Marie Scott for City-owned property located at 156 Short Street, Bishop, California."

"Budget and Finance Committee Report relative to the City Treasurer's Investment and Cash Management Reports for the months of May, June and July, 2009."

The list goes ON AND ON AND ON. I am NOT defending the city council or saying they are doing a great job but can you HONESTLY see someone disagreeing or having passionate debates over issues such as THESE? I was legitimately not nit-picking voting results that favored my viewpoint. I was literally just randomly choosing vote entries. If you want to see it for yourself, use this website and search the votes: http://cityclerk.lacity.org/cv...

I am honestly not surprised that there is such a high level of agreement if these are the kinds of issues they are voting on..

fishouttawater

Mr. Karapetyan. The items you point out are the mundane workings of making laws and what gives this process the likeness of making sausage. There are bigger issues the Council agrees on 99 percent of the time.Here's a glaring example of council members jumping on the train that will take them to their next political office. The Council rushed to judgment when it agreed unanimously to give AEG carte blanche to build an NFL stadium downtown without ever investigating the cost to the city of building the facility. The Council keeps saying the AEG stadium will cost the taxpayers nothing. That is a lie. The Council never bothered to find out what it was going to cost taxpayers to renovate streets to make this private stadium workable. Some transportation experts say the public will be on the hook for paying upward of $100 million for street upgrades to downtown. The Council ignored the fact that there are some serious transportation issues that need to be addressed. The Council preferred to believe "AEG" when the company said "there is no traffic on Sunday when there are NFL games. You could stand on the 110 Freeway and roll a bowling ball and you wouldn't hit a car on Sunday." The Council ignored the fact that 300,000 cars a day pass by the junction of the 10 and the 110 where the stadium will be built. That seems like a lot of traffic.The Council ignored all the warning signs and voted unanimously to let AEG build the stadium. The ulterior motive -- Council members want to say in campaign literature that they brought NFL football back to LA which would give them something to tout when they run for future office. You are right, sir, on one point. The sausage making at city hall is an ugly affair -- and voters ignore it at their peril.

Gerrie Schipske

Sadly, this could be applied to many city councils.

joy mars

Because maybe they are supposed to plod along that way. The workings of a democracy are largely unimaginative. This is not what we've been taught democracy is, but in actuality sausage-making is a dull sport.

Gola42-50

Of course you miss the obvious connection to LA's unusual campaign finance laws which are the real reason no incumbent ever loses an election.

Alexandar

Here's a link to the CGS report, Money and Power in the City of Angels, mentioned in this article:

http://www.policyarchive.org/h...

The CGS report, also found that incumbents have an overwhelming contribution advantage. "Incumbents have an overwhelming fundraising advantage over challengers. Incumbents raised a combined total of $5.3 million in private contributions, compared to challengers who raised a combined total of $285,000, a ratio of over 19-to-1."