State of the City hoopla

LAAG told the County of LA essentially the same thing regarding its own "state of the county" luncheon Nov 1. Why should non profit organizations (like LAAG) and taxpayers in the city be forced to pay to hear politicians speak about issues that should be fully discussed and detailed on their website? The City of Lakewood (although not a charter city like Long Beach) needs to take note and end this silly luncheon. Much better to raise money with firework sales (just kidding about the fireworks!!).

Mayor To End State Of City Luncheon
http://www.gazettes.com/stateofthecity08302007.html
By Harry Saltzgaver
Executive Editor

There will be a State of the City message next January and in every January until and unless the city Charter changes.

But that message probably won’t be delivered at a luncheon sponsored by the Long Beach Area Chamber of Commerce after next year. Mayor Bob Foster has told the Chamber that he doesn’t believe anyone should receive a financial benefit for a speech delivered to fulfill a requirement of the Charter.

Becki Ames, Foster’s chief of staff, said last week that the mayor wouldn’t participate in a State of the City luncheon after 2008. Randy Gordon, Chamber president and CEO, said Tuesday that he and Chamber board members had met with Foster last month, but hadn’t resolved all he issues.

“After we met with the mayor in late July, we knew it (2009) most likely wasn’t going to happen, but it wasn’t a done deal,” Gordon said. “We knew this was coming because of the mayor’s philosophy. But we were leaving it up to him.”

Foster gave notice last year that he wasn’t comfortable with the format of a luncheon raising money for the Chamber, and asked the group to donate money to three nonprofit groups from part of the proceeds. The Chamber gave $5,000 to each of the groups for a total of $15,000, and Gordon said he expects to give away significantly more after the January 2008 event.

“We’re still negotiating what we are going to give to nonprofits, but it is going to be substantially more,” he said. “We want to do that, especially if it is the last one.”

Foster was on vacation and unavailable for comment.

Since the early 1990s, the Chamber has sponsored a lunch with the State of the City speech as its centerpiece. During former Mayor Beverly O’Neill’s tenure, the luncheon became a must-attend event, drawing up to 1,500 people.

When the City Charter was amended in 1988 to create the position of a fulltime mayor, a section was added requiring a state of the city message similar to the State of the Union required of the president:

“On or before the 15th day of January of each year, the Mayor shall communicate by message to the City Council a statement of the conditions and affairs of the City, and make recommendations on such matters as the Mayor may deem expedient and proper.”

But, according to City Attorney Robert Shannon, there is no requirement that the message to the council be made in a speech, or even made public.

Before O’Neill’s term in office, mayors presented the speech to the council, typically at the second City Council meeting of the year. The Chamber first started hosting a lunch to give the mayor a chance to give the message to the public when Tom Clark was in office, according to Randy Gordon, Chamber president and CEO.

In O’Neill’s last year in office, the State of the City netted about $100,000 after expenses, Gordon said. That included a major sponsorship and corporate tables going for as much as $1,895. Individual tickets were $45, which about covered the cost of the meal, Gordon said.

But the Chamber has become increasingly political in recent years, endorsing candidates and providing money through a separate Chamber Political Action Committee. The Chamber has sued the city regarding campaign finance laws and mounted petition drives against City Council action on issues including a “Labor Peace Agreement” for city hotels and a ban on big box stores.

Several council members, most notably Seventh District Councilwoman Tonia Reyes Uranga (whom the Chamber opposed in the last municipal election), have complained that the city government was supporting a group that apparently opposed city policies.

Foster, who received the Chamber endorsement in the last election, had not made that fact an issue.

Instead, his emphasis has been to find a way that no individual group benefited from the Charter-mandated message.

Ironically, the Long Beach Chamber will sponsor its first “State of the County” luncheon this November, featuring a speech from Fourth District Supervisor Don Knabe. But that event was not planned in response to the pending demise of the State of the City luncheon.

“It, frankly was something we should have done a long time ago,” Grodon said. “Long Beach is the largest city in Supervisor Knabe’s district by far.

“You aren’t going to replace a $100,000 or $125,000 hole in your budget overnight. But we’ll do some other, smaller events to take up the slack.”

The Chamber’s State of the County lunch is set for Nov. 1. For more information, go to www.lbchamber.com.

Lakewood Accountability Action Group™ LAAG | www.LAAG.us | Lakewood, CA
A California Non Profit Association | Demanding action and accountability from local government™

letter to City Council re RV/Trailer private property parking code revisions

Date: Wed, 29 Aug 2007 22:02:06 -0700

To: "Todd Rogers, City Council" , , "Joe Esquivel, City Council" , , "Larry Van Nostran, city council" , , "Steve Croft, city council" , , "Diane DuBois, City Council" , "Howard Chambers, City Mgr" , "Jack Gonsalves Dir. Comm. Dev." , "Lakewood Service Requests"

From: Lakewood Accountability Action Group | LAAG

Subject: RV/Trailer private property parking code revisions

Dear Councilman Rogers:

I wanted to summarize my thoughts in a letter rather than taking up more time in the 8/28/07 city hearings. First after volunteering I was rather disheartened by the fact that I was not asked to participate on the 10 member focus group which claimed to be balanced. It sure appears that the RV owners carried the day there as anticipated. Again I will reassert from my May 2007 letter that it does appear that the Council is capitulating on the reform of the code as to the private property parking issues, which LAAG feels will likely result in further relaxations of the existing code not recommended by the Planning Commission and which will have the effect of nullifying the November 2006 election results.

For brevity I am only going to address the “site plan” number 4 schematics as all the properties in my area have detached rear two car garages. I am also not going to repeat all the information in our May 2007 letter. Unfortunately most the items I mentioned in that letter were not addressed and will likely come to pass as issues facing a future council.

1. For the most part, you are throwing years of established code precedent out the window by allowing garages to be totally blocked for months if not years on end by huge trailers and motor homes (RV’s). Now the car(s) that could have gone in the garage will have to be parked in front of my house as most of my neighbors have too many vehicles. The city needs to address this issue. How is that fair that your neighbor uses up all his parking with an RV then takes up your street parking?

2. There is no rational basis for allowing RV’s to creep beyond the front of the house. My garage to the front of my house is 51 feet. I don’t know of any RV’s or trailers longer than 50 feet. Allowing the RV to come within 16’ of the sidewalk is silly and again has no rational basis. You are only creating another 5 feet of storage and ruining the look of the houses as you look down the street. You are also creating sight restrictions when backing out. If children are playing on an adjoining lawn you will not be able to see them until its too late. The 5 foot vision triangle should run from the front of the house as well. If the RV’s are even with the houses this blight is reduced. The rule should be that the RV cannot protrude beyond the house.

3. The blight effect would be further reduced by requiring at least a 6 foot fence to run across the entire driveway even with the front of the house. If you make the RV jut out beyond the house the fence becomes a bigger problem. The fence is needed to keep animals and small children out from the underside and backside of the motor home and to block the view of all clutter usually associated with motor homes and their owners who are usually working on them. Also most people that own motor homes think theirs looks great. Most don’t. I think a painted solid fence is better to look at especially with most run down RV’s in Lakewood. It would make the sore thumb blend in better. I also see no rational basis for making a distinction on requiring a corner lot to be fenced. Looking at the front of an RV is just as bad as the side. Also just because more people see it from the street on a corner lot makes my point. If its ugly on the corner its still ugly right in front on my house, on a corner or not. Also why a distinction between campers and RV’s. This is nonsense hair splitting to appease some silent minority.

4. Fire and access issues. How you can park a 12’ high 40 foot long motor home between two homes with barely a few feet either side of it and not think that it is going to hinder firefighters access to either property is ludicrous. In addition most of these RVs have huge fuel tanks and propane tanks which could explode in a fire. Also the more fact that you are wedging this huge plastic coated structure in between two homes is increasing the chance that one house fire will also ignite the adjoining house. I would take that lawsuit against the city especially in light of the fact that it is such an obvious problem. Apparently the firefighters union nixed the Edison right of way RV parking plans with a bogus fire code “revision” but have green lighted (or not addressed) this private property issue. Politics and fire. What a mixture.

5. CEQA The “aesthetics” part of CEQA is a big issue here. I think if this ordinance gets too liberal it is going to be subject to a CEQA challenge. So the existing negative EIR could be called into question as it was done for the changes the Planning Commission envisioned which I don’t see being adopted without significant relaxations affecting aesthetics. It appears here that the Planning Commission recommendations were essentially trashed on key provisions the pro RV lobby wanted and that what ever input the “anti-RV” contingent of 5 citizens, it could not have had much to do with improving aesthetics.

This committee is nothing but a capitulation to the RV owners and has thrown aesthetics out the window. The city is on its way to becoming Cudahy or some other city with low property values. This is how it starts. The November 2006 election results are hereby officially nullified. The voters were successful in moving the blight 20 feet.

The city also has no provisions for the total number of RV’s or vehicles that can be stored on or of the property, their degree of repair or tattered appearance or any method for homeowners to challenge the blight created by a neighbor. Given the enforcement efforts to fix blighted homes so far I see things getting much worse under the “new” “enlightened” code.

Sincerely,

Lakewood Accountability Action Group

Lakewood Accountability Action Group™ LAAG | www.LAAG.us | Lakewood, CA
A California Non Profit Association | Demanding action and accountability from local government™

do away with the state Legislature..not a bad idea

LAAG has said this before. With the initiative process who needs the state legislature? What have they done for you lately (by "you" I mean taxpayers not govt. employees)? I really dont think we would miss them. I dont totally agree with the writer below that the handful of California Republicans are just in this for themselves and did not help by not "fixing" the budget. Sen. McClintock proposed fixes. How could he get them through. Would the spendaholics ever vote for them? No. The state Republicans are in much worse a position that the Congressional Dems were before Nov 06 when the Republicans controlled congress. When you are in the minority all you can do is throw stones. You cant set the agenda.

One way to do away with the current state legislature is make sure you dont vote for an incumbent in 08. That works. Looks like that may happen at the national level.


We should just do away with the state Legislature
By Jim Boren
08/26/07 04:52:04
The only thing the 52-day budget stalemate proved is how irrelevant the California Legislature has become. Change a few laws and we wouldn't need them at all.

State Senate President Pro Tem Don Perata wants to reform the state budget process. I say reform the whole bunch out of business. Nothing the legislators have done over the past two months -- maybe the past several decades -- has made life better for Californians.

They have not fixed health care or made our public schools better. Our freeways are parking lots and they've done nothing. We're running out of water for a growing population and they're calling for another study. They use our most vulnerable citizens as pawns to leverage goodies for their rich pals. The prison system is about to explode and they wait for the courts to fix it. They drag out the budget and still can't balance it.

If this is what representative government in 21st century California has become, I'll pass.

A better idea is to make the state Capitol a museum and hire tour guides to tell visitors that this was once the place where cutting-edge ideas were turned into the nation's best freeway system, a place where a world-class public university system was encouraged, a place where leaders had the foresight to build a water system that could quench the state's thirst and grow the nation's best crops.

Lobbyists call the shots now

But somewhere in the mid-1970s, the Legislature and a series of governors began losing their nerve. The Capitol became a place where politicians weaseled and visionary ideas were replaced by demagoguery. They handed off policy-making to lobbyists, who pushed laws helping their clients.

If you were in the chosen group, you benefited. The rest of us saw our quality of life get worse.

And when we weren't looking, the legislators did a very smart thing to protect their backsides. They locked in their seats by manipulating legislative district lines. That allowed extremists from both sides of the political spectrum to be bullet-proof in their districts, even when they did stupid things like holding up the state budget for almost two months.

So the legislative process has finally become worthless. Let's go a few years into the future and listen in on a tour guide at the Capitol museum discussing how the California Legislature became extinct:

"Over here are the fossilized remains of legislators. Look closely and you'll see what's left of a species that attached themselves to legislators. They were called "special interests" and they survived by doing all they could to block the will of the people. They were sometimes called spine-suckers, and they went hungry in later years because legislators no longer provided nourishment."

Before that happens, let's admit that the California Legislature was a very bad experiment, and needs to be abolished. What we have now is not working.

With safe districts, the politicians don't have to appeal to the masses but can survive by throwing red meat to special interests, and voters on the fringe. Nothing gets done, yet we go through a legislative session pretending that all the activity means something important is happening. It's all a ruse.

They haven't done anything

Those of us outside of Sacramento see something quite different from what the legislators and political insiders see. They pat themselves on the back, but when you total up the good things the Legislature has accomplished, you get a big fat zero.

The conservative, anti-government types are going to say, "Yeah, that's what we've been telling you. Government stinks."

They couldn't be more wrong. Government is fine, but the people running it have gamed the system in a way that has caused gridlock in Sacramento. It's time to jettison the system.

The conservatives are as much of a problem as the liberals. Because they are in the legislative minority, they do little other than gumming up the works. They get giddy when they cause messes, and give speeches about protecting the public. Baloney.

The budget standoff in the Senate is a perfect example. They blocked the budget, but in the end, didn't make it better. They even hurt people -- poor people, of course, not CEOs or their big-money donors -- with their tactics.

The Democrats -- most of them way left of center -- control the Legislature and they give money away to the public employee unions and have put public pension programs in jeopardy by being unwilling to scale back out-of-control costs.

They should be showing leadership, but they are showing the way to bankruptcy.

If both parties aren't doing their jobs in the Legislature, is there any reason for it to exist? Some people say going to a part-time Legislature would make sense. I say that's just humoring problem children.

It's time for drastic action. We don't need a stinking Legislature.
Jim Boren is The Fresno Bee’s editorial page editor. His column appears Sundays. E-mail him at jboren@fresnobee.com or write him at 1626 E St., Fresno 93786.

Lakewood Accountability Action Group™ LAAG | www.LAAG.us | Lakewood, CA
A California Non Profit Association | Demanding action and accountability from local government™