"LA Must Protect Itself From Itself" by Daniel Guss
@TheGussReport - It’s 2022 and Los Angeles has a narrow, approaching window to start fixing its copious political challenges and corruption.
Having watched a few decades of local elections, here is what LA needs to do to save itself from itself.
Stop electing candidates based on their last name, skin tone and if they sound like an echo chamber of each other and the media.
Take everything the Los Angeles Times says or endorses with a grain of salt…and tequila. Stop relying on its endorsements since it almost entirely serves as a protective public relations unit for liberal and left politicians and their ideas to the total lack of balance of other sides, opinions and candidates. It is worth noting that the Times has endorsed, or even repeatedly endorsed, virtually every candidate currently or recently facing recall.
Start electing people from outside of the local political ecosystem. Encourage and elect those who have built something significant in the private sector. People who know what it’s like to make payroll in the face of illogical, oppressive and un-scientific government mandates. Think engineers, teachers (not school board members), healthcare professionals, private sector attorneys and the like. Elect reluctant politicians, not career ones.
Let’s repeat that: elect reluctant politicians, not career ones.
***
All the commotion so far about who is running for Mayor of LA and other offices is just that: chatter. It means nothing until February 7, 2022, when the candidate filing window opens to file a Declaration Of Intention to Become a Candidate. That narrow window closes less than a week later, on February 12. That’ll be the entirety of our options. People who fail to file will not make it onto the primary ballot.
Then there’s the race to gather 500 valid signatures by March 9, a rigged process designed to favor monied candidates. Those who submit at least a thousand signatures for verification do not have to pay the $300 fee.
***
Los Angeles Political Rumor Mill
Career politician and leading candidate for Mayor of Los Angeles Karen Bass has conducted surveys on her chances with, and without, billionaire businessman and man-about-USC Rick Caruso on the June 2022 primary ballot. We hear that Bass was in the lead whether or not Caruso’s name is on the ballot, but it was close. On the other hand, LA City Councilmembers Joe Buscaino and Kevin Leon (aka Kevin DeLeon), LA City Attorney Mike Feuer, and everyone else was far behind. (This column knows the order but sees no point in sharing it with some (and therefore all) candidates who dodge this column’s questions.)
Look for Caruso to announce his candidacy within the next couple of days. Or, shall we say, we have been told that he “will announce within a few days” and that he is “leaning toward running.”
The LA City Council, which cavorted maskless in its recent indoor meetings, suddenly put the masks back on with the lawmakers checking in to the meetings remotely. But the rumor is that its president Nury Martinez is so lacking in confidence that she’s keeping the public out of the meetings and reducing even further their public participation via Zoom because the criticism and mocking are more than she can handle. Say what you will about Eric Garcetti. But when he was Council president, the public got five minutes to speak on agenda items, plus two minutes to speak on non-agenda items, and called them sequentially so concerns, whether fair or not, were inclusive and un-bunched, so their views can be heard when the issue is discussed by the lawmakers. Martinez is a censor because she hasn’t demonstrated the ability to successfully lead, fix and strategize. Also unlike Garcetti and her presidency predecessor Herb Wesson, she is clueless about how to embrace gadflies and simply allow freedom of speech, and that hurts everyone else by almost completely eliminating public participation. Finally, for someone who used to serve on the LAUSD board, she doesn’t apparently know that the plural of “crisis” is “crises,” not “crisisis.”
LA County Supervisor Janice Hahn, like her brother and former Mayor of LA Jim Hahn, made a name for herself getting elected over and over based on her late father’s name, rather than significantly improving constituents’ lives. She has bizarrely endorsed LA City Councilmember Mike Bonin for yet another term in office, despite an ongoing recall effort and the stunning demise of the westside of LA. Keep that in mind when she asks you for another term for herself. If Bonin’s outcomes work for you, it would seem that Hahn is your gal to keep on the County Supes. But if they are not, will the voters keep her around or show her the door?
***
This brings us to chaotic and perhaps delusional LA City Attorney Mike Feuer, who plans to run for mayor once the formal process begins.
Feuer appeared via Zoom at a Neighborhood Council meeting a few nights ago. After exchanging light chatter about board member questions, Feuer said (paraphrasing), “I’m going to show you what type of mayor that I would be. I’m going to stay and answer every question tonight!”
At that time, this column reminded the few dozen participants in the meeting chat column that the FBI recently raided Feuer in its ongoing and wide-ranging extortion and bribery scandal. Also, according to the DOJ, it took place right under Feuer’s mustachioed nose (referred to on KFI AM-640’s The John and Ken Show as “the worst mustache in LA”).
This column further reminded participants that Feuer is being investigated by the State Bar of California. Also, the DOJ says his office knew and explicitly approved of a major conflict of interest enabling extortion and bribery that resulted in federal plea deals for a slew of his chums.
Suddenly, Feuer informed the group that he could only take one question, citing a memorial he must attend, which is odd if you think about it. Someone Feuer knows apparently died and had a memorial arranged between his promise to field all questions and his fielding only one of them.
What a coincidence!
THAT is the type of mayor Michael Nelson Feuer would be. A corruption-enabling and cowardly one. This column has repeatedly predicted that he won’t get past the primary, assuming he makes it to the primary at all. We believe that Feuer will be indicted, his law license suspended, or both. But even if that doesn’t happen, the stink of corruption and hypocrisy will kill whatever slim chance he’s got.
Did we mention the scuttlebutt about Feuer’s seized records allegedly drip, drip, dripping out of the grand jury?
Anyhoo, the Neighborhood Council folks let Feuer exit and repeatedly disconnected this column from the meeting.
It falsely stated that it could not call members of the public for their turn to speak if no name is provided (though one was) and refused to cure and correct its violations of the California public meeting laws. It then abruptly canceled the rest of the meeting. Or, more precisely, they suddenly cut off the entire Zoom meeting only a third of the way through its agenda.
They didn’t say they canceled the rest of the meeting. They just aborted it.
As forewarned, this column immediately filed a claim with the City and a public records request for all records related to that meeting.
This column reached out to Feuer to find out who the alleged decedent was and when he found out about the “memorial.” No response. But that’s Mike Feuer for you.
There’s more that LA needs to know, but that’s all for now.
Follow me on The Twitters @TheGussReport. Feel free to share this widely.
(Daniel Guss, MBA, was runner-up for the 2020 Los Angeles Press Club journalism award for Best Online Political Commentary and was a runner-up in 2021 too. He has contributed to Mayor Sam, CityWatchLA, KFI AM-640, iHeartMedia, 790-KABC, Cumulus Media, KCRW, Huffington Post, Los Angeles Daily News, Los Angeles Magazine, Movieline Magazine, Emmy Magazine, Los Angeles Business Journal, Pasadena Star News, Los Angeles Downtown News, and The Los Angeles Times in its Sports, Opinion and Entertainment Sections and Sunday Magazine among other publishers.)