For a guy who hasn't made full use of his mayoral powers over the past four and a half years, and instead has opted to fly around the world and make guests appearances on such TV shows as Project Runway and All My Children, Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa is suddenly acting kind of like, well, a big city, hands-on mayor.

At a Los Angeles Area Chamber of Commerce luncheon today (yeah, the mayor still loves wasting time on the luncheon circuit), Villaraigosa said he wants a second wave of city worker layoffs of 1,000 or more jobs, the Los Angeles Times reports.

If Villaraigosa gets his way, a total of more than 2,000 city workers will be fired very, very soon.

And, the L.A. Times reports, the mayor thinks the City Attorney's Office recent legal opinion that says he can't give the axe to those city workers is full of hooey.

Villaraigosa, who never does anything unless he looks good in the end,

must think firing a whole bunch of city workers, many of whom are union

members, is somehow a political winner.

Already, the budget is turning into one heck of an interesting political battle to watch, with Villaraigosa calling out the City Council's use of multi-million-dollar discretionary funds.

Oddly, the City Council, led by Council President Eric Garcetti, has yet to hit back and suggest that the mayor should cut his staff of over 200 people.

Yeah, 200!!!

And so it goes.

Contact Patrick Range McDonald at pmcdonald@laweekly.com.

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