The In(dictment) Crowd

By Daniel Guss

@TheGussReport - Ah, the great joys in life that we never forget.

The first time you ride a bike on your own.

How about your first kiss?

For some LA political observers, perhaps it was when the FBI slapped the cuffs on Mitch Englander, not just because the disgraced former City Councilmember deservedly wound up in federal prison, but also because he relished punching down and censoring people with legitimate concerns and pleas for help. (More on that point further down).

But let's face it, we're going nuts waiting for the corruption trials of Englander's pals Jose Huizar and Mark Ridley-Thomas.  And we are bored to tears wondering whether anyone else gets pinched.

So to mash-up Rufus, Chaka Khan and Dobie Gray, tell me something good. Who’s in with the in(dictment) crowd?

Well, pull-up a chair and stay a spell.

Last week, the LA County District Attorney's office confirmed for this column that it executed a search warrant on July 12th on Inglewood City Hall. But they refused to address my questions that were based on a document allegedly connected to its warrant which indicates that it sought records showing how current LA City Councilmember Curren Price and his second wife, Delbra Richardson Price, portrayed their marital status while claiming benefits from Inglewood, for starters.

What’s the connection between Inglewood City Hall and a current LA City Councilmember?

(Photo Credit Unknown: Delbra Richardson Price and Curren Price)

Price’s mind-numbing career bouncing from one elected office to another is as follows: He did two stints on Inglewood City Council from 1993-97 and 2001-2006. He was a member of the California State Assembly from 2006-09, the State Senate from 2009-13 and on LA City Council from 2013 to the present, where he represents LA’s 9th Council District, which is sometimes referred to as “The New 9th.”

While the DA’s search warrant means neither guilt nor even forthcoming charges, it comes as no surprise that law enforcement has Price under a microscope.

The DA’s investigation could relate to any number of controversies involving Price, including his bigamy and alleged fraud and perjury, about which I wrote eight columns, the last of which is linked here and within which the previous seven columns are sequentially linked.

Perhaps it is about Price's votes on LA City Council that benefitted his wife’s clients, as detailed by the LA Times in 2019.  

Or it could relate to other City Hall maneuvers that have, until now, gone off the radar.

And then there's this...

While the DA's office, like other law enforcement agencies, says that it does not comment on ongoing investigations, law enforcement from time-to-time does state whether certain people are not persons of interest to keep scrutiny off of those who do not deserve it. But they refuse to say that they have excluded from their investigation any of the familiar local political names — and some of their family members — that I ran by them.

Which brings us to this question: What's the deal with the bizarre and inconsistent public meeting rules established by LA City Council President Nury Martinez?  

(Nury Martinez)

Martinez allows mask-less members of the public to attend broadcasted City Council meetings in-person, where she recently restarted a huge and disruptive time-wasting tradition: honoring locals and visiting dignitaries while important issues are voted on.

Yet Martinez still requires that thinly followed Committee meetings, which take place in the same building, are only held on Zoom.

Odd? You bet.

Want to know why?

(Pictured in pink during a recent honorary presentation in the middle of a City Council meeting, Martinez has complete say over how all City Hall meetings are run.)

Despite COVID being no more transmissible at one in-person meeting than another, and despite third booster shots being readily available, and despite President Joe Biden recently saying “the pandemic is over,” why does Martinez maintain two sets of COVID rules for meetings that take place in the same building?

When critics air their concerns at the smaller, non-broadcasted Committee meetings, public participation on that agenda item ends there. Further public input isn’t required and won’t happen unless Martinez says so, which is exceedingly rare and only when it benefits her. Then, she allows only one minute of general public comment for anyone willing to go to City Hall at 10am on a weekday, where Martinez has slapped other speaking limits, sometimes declaring that enough people have been heard for the day, even though not everyone got their single, solitary minute to speak.

Martinez has, by design, made it exceedingly difficult for the public to participate in Council and Committee meetings on the same day. In fact, she makes it significantly harder for the public to be heard than it ever was under her predecessors in that role, Herb Wesson, Eric Garcetti and Alex Padilla.

Martinez’s scheme leverages the fact that censoring critics in Zoom meetings is exceedingly easy, requiring just the click of a disconnect button. Its victims have only one option to force Committee chairs (who are all chosen by Martinez) to “cure and correct” their abuses. But it is onerous, expensive and time-sensitive.

No surprise, a big abuser of Zoom censorship is the increasingly desperate Councilmember Paul Koretz, given his distant second-place finish in the primary to CPA Kenneth Mejia in the upcoming City Controller race.

That’s because Mejia has rightfully pledged to audit the hell out of LA City Hall, which Martinez desperately wants to block. It is also why she added the word “Audits” to the Committee she appointed Koretz to chair, even though he has never conducted an audit in his life.

That’s no coincidence.

If you take away anything from today’s column, it should be this:

Martinez’s bizarre rules are designed to protect every corrupt and embarrassing City Hall secret, of which there are plenty, from seeing the light of day. They are designed to stop Mejia from winning because he understands the subpoena power of the City Controller’s office and she is the corrupt status quo’s only safety net against it.

That said, Martinez critics know how to punch back. Just as they did to Englander before the feds pinched him, she is increasingly punked with cringeworthy fake names, like her recently calling for "Dr. Sum Ting Wong” (pronounced: “something wrong” in a racist, stereotyped Asian accent) for his/her turn to speak.

If that name sounds familiar, in 2013, a prankster cruelly used it to punk Oakland TV station KTVU, the Los Angeles Times, New York Times and CNN during the deadly Asiana Airlines crash at San Francisco Airport.

Whether any further indictments slam LA City Hall is anyone’s guess. But the opinion here is that The New 9th-horse in the paddock looks promising. Might as well consider an exacta or trifecta, as you mull the odds.

More to come. I’ll be here.

Follow me on The Twitters @TheGussReport. Sign up for my free Substack column and see earlier pieces at:

(Daniel Guss, MBA, was nominated for three 2022 LA Press Club awards and was a runner-up in 2021 and 2020. 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, entertainment and Sunday Magazine sections among other publishers.)