The fight over police hiring in Los Angeles has caused a headache for Mayor Karen Bass.
For this year, her plan was to hire 480 police officers, but due to the city’s deficit of $1 billion, the Council only approved 240. The mayor was not happy and agreed with her ally Council President Marqueece Harris Dawson to, within 90 days, look for public money even under the rocks and hire more officers.
But 90 days passed, and another 90, and the mayor became desperate and pressured the Council to hire up to 410 new agents. Obviously not all councilors liked the idea since they argue that without knowing where the money will come from, the deficit will further deepen.
Councilwoman Katy Yaroslavsky, chairwoman of the city council’s Budget and Finance Committee, introduced a motion to hire 40 police officers in January, at a cost of $1.7 million, which would bring the number of new officers to 280 this fiscal year. The motion was approved, but it is not what the mayor wanted, and that disappointed her because she needs to increase the numbers of police officers to guarantee security for the World Cup on 26 and the Olympics on 28.
The hiring of police officers is a quite controversial issue, similar to a skein that gets tangled and when it seems that we have already found a way to untangle it, it becomes knotted again.
Chastening Councilor Lee
John Lee, the councilman for the northwest San Fernando Valley, will have to pay a fine of $134,424 for five violations of the gift law for failing to report that he accepted expensive meals, alcoholic beverages, hotel stays, transportation and even casino gambling chips on a trip to Las Vegas in 2017, from three individuals who wanted to do business with the City.
A judge had recommended a fine of around $44,000, but the Municipal Ethics Commission decided to apply the maximum penalty to send a message to others.
The violations were committed by Lee when he was not yet a councilman, but worked for his boss, Councilman Mitchell Englander, who spent 14 months in prison for accepting money from special interests, lying to the FBI and obstructing an investigation.
The councilman is resisting the fine before the Los Angeles County Superior Court, because he says the charges are politically motivated.
Regardless of whether Lee or his supposed detractors are right, it is clear that the councilors have not learned the hard lessons of other councilors who made mistakes that cost them even prison. Councilors cannot continue behaving as free actors who can do whatever they want without being held accountable.
Councilors support former mayor
Councilors Marqueece Harris-Dawson, Heather Hutt, Curren Price and Bob Blumenfield, all of them very politically close to Mayor Bass, gave their support to former Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa to be governor of California. As we can see, Villaraigosa is closing the year not as badly off as it started.
open microphone
Be careful with microphones! Mayor Bass has not been the only politician or public figure who has gotten into trouble believing that cameras and microphones are off after an interview, and then without the pressure of the script, they let go of their bodies and, confident that no one is listening to them, say what they really think about this or that topic.
So believing she was no longer on the air, the mayor said the city and county’s response to the January fires had been fatal. When Bass’s office realized he ranted, they immediately requested that that part be removed from the talk for the podcast. The fifth column.
The lesson is that we should never say in private what we cannot say publicly.