What recession?

As the article from the Wall Street Journal below so aptly noted its never a recession for government employees. Although the article picks in NY California is no different nor is any other state or local government entity. Heathcare and pensions get fatter. Their pensions cant ever really "loose value" in the market because if they do taxpayers bail them out. Their healthcare is gold plated for life. I am sure many federal employees voted against Obama not wanting to share their healthcare with the rest of us "little people". Hiring goes on unabated, raises (not for merit mind you) keep piling up year after year, fattening that pension. Oh and lets not forget that you cant ever be laid off or fired unless you basically want to be or shoot your boss. The point is there is no recession for government employees. Oh and remember they dont pay social security taxes. They are too good for that. Social Security is for "po' folk" pensions. So the next time you wonder how your neighbors are struggling in the recession dont ask your government employed neighbors (likely the ones with the newest SUV's in the driveway) I wonder why in Obama's 30 minute infomercial he never ran across a "middle class" government employee (or retired one) that was "struggling". If Obama really wants to fix things he will federalize every worker in the USA like the TSA did. What is ironic is many of the folks likely crying Obama was a "socialist" during the campaign were likely government employees (I can name two; one shoots Moose).

Take a look at these stats right from the Bureau of Labor Statistics (www.bls.gov) publication entitled: "THE EMPLOYMENT SITUATION: OCTOBER 2008"

Table A shows that all sectors are down except for government employees, which are up 23%. Table A-11 shows that government workers (2.3% unemployment) and people in healthcare and education (also mostly government jobs) (2.7% unemployment) have the lowest percentages of unemployment. It is likely unchanged even in good economic times. Well mining is lower but I dont see people clamoring to those jobs. (gotta keep churning out that greenhouse gas!)






NOVEMBER 18, 2008

The Public Payroll Always Rises
New York spends as if the mortgage boom never ended.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122696844505235511.html

As the recession hits home, all across America businesses and families are having to make hard decisions about what not to buy this year, or whether they can afford a vacation or that plane trip home for the holidays. The exception is the government -- federal, state and city.

As a case in point, consider the nearby chart as an addendum to our editorial last week on New York's imploding finances. City and state politicians want voters to believe that they have been careful stewards of taxpayer money, searching out waste far and wide, and genuinely doing everything they can to control government bloat. Ah, no.

New York City did witness a reduction in public employment in 2002 and 2003, during the last period of slower economic growth. But the city quickly resumed its habit of ever-growing payrolls, and they have kept growing rapidly in the years since -- to an estimated record this June 30 of 313,965 employees on the public dime, according to the Mayor's office. That's an increase of more than 40,000 public workers in a year when Wall Street has been enduring historic losses and laying off tens of thousands of people.

Like most of his predecessors, Mayor Michael Bloomberg has been reluctant to challenge the public-employee unions that drive ever-larger public employment. Now, amid the current downturn, he is once again talking about a property-tax increase or a new commuter tax along with some modest reductions in services. That is merely tinkering with the status quo rather than using the current crisis as an opportunity to drive major reform. As Rahm Emanuel likes to say, a crisis is a terrible thing to waste.

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

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Burning through the budget

What is nice about having a catalog of articles that cover a limited range of topics is that you start to see some trends. The first trend is that most people have very short memories and second that politicians NEVER learn from their mistakes or take advantage of "institutional memory". Here is an article from July 2007 that warns of the problems with fire costs and the phony "made for TV" air water drops. Yet we plow ahead with runaway fire costs. True we need to save homes when we can (those that are truly defensible) but when it comes to fires that do not threaten homes we need to cut way back on costs given our current budget tsunami.

editorial
Burning through money
Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger says Californians shouldn't worry about firefighting costs, but the state's fiscal situation indicates that we should.
November 18, 2008

As fires continued to engulf homes and threaten more Los Angeles and Orange County neighborhoods over the weekend, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger said Californians shouldn't worry, for now, about the $11 billion that the state has to find in taxes or program cuts in the current fiscal year. Despite the almost incomprehensible budget problem, he said, California won't have to skimp on fighting fires because of a $1.7-billion reserve built into the budget for exactly this kind of emergency. That's enough to keep the water-dropping aircraft flying and the firefighters on the front lines fully equipped.

The "extra" cushion of $1.7 billion is reassuring, but only up to a point. That fund is needed for all kinds of contingencies, and as this year's fires burn through acreage, they are burning almost as quickly through the fund. State fire suppression costs since July 1 already reached $304 million by the end of September, well before the most recent and destructive Sylmar, Freeway Complex and Montecito fires. Compare that with the $206-million cost for the entire year of 2006-07.

Schwarzenegger built this year's reserve on cuts from the general fund. Each of those cuts hurt, depriving seniors, for example, of their full share of renters' assistance and keeping counties from being able to test water quality at beaches. The state now faces deeper and more fundamental cuts. They can be avoided only by raising taxes -- or by leaving the state unprepared for an earthquake, terrorist attack or more fires. The fast-moving blazes that began during the weekend and are still burning should remind lawmakers, now meeting in special session, that they can not simply shrug their shoulders and hope that things work themselves out. Disaster won't wait for the state's fiscal situation to improve.

Deadlock on the budget last year helped divert attention from a Schwarzenegger proposal to fund emergency response with assessments on homeowners through their insurance policies. The plan needed some work, and the governor and some lawmakers were giving it their attention. But with the time-frittering nonnegotiations about whether to tax or cut, the work didn't get done.

California will have more fires. Development continues in fire-prone wilderness areas, and prolonged drought keeps much of the state tinder dry. There have been on average just under 6,000 fires each year in areas served by Cal Fire, the state firefighting agency, but this year there already have been 9,600. The state has to respond with better fire codes and a just way to spread the financial costs. But more than anything, it needs to get its fiscal house in order.

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

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Verizon FIOS finally arrives in North Lakewood

Many areas of Lakewood CA north of Del Amo now have Verizon FIOS available to them (thanks to LAAG making sure our central office was on the 2008 build list). LAAG was one of the first installations in our area (11/1/08). Areas south of Del Amo have had it since early 2007. We now have the 10/2 speed and do like it. We had the 3.0 DSL speed previously for about 5 years. Dont notice a huge difference in down load speed but it seems more speed consistent from web page to web page than DSL and the upload is better. Email checking is also faster on POP 3 and via web interface on Google than with DSL 3.0.

The most accurate way we determined to see if FIOS is available is to use the Verizon on line checking tool available here

We have been using the service for two weeks and have not had a problem yet with the internet or phone portion. We did have a problem with the aspect ratio on the TV via the set top box with the DVR. We still have not ironed out the aspect ratio issue but the DVR does work nicely. Needs more space (bigger hard drive) for High Definition recording. Eventually with the "M-Cards" you will be able to buy your own DVR (not rent one for 20.00 mo from Verizon) and plug in their card to get your shows. The latest DVR's can use this M-Card.

We are also waiting for femtocells here as well as FIOS digital voice, both of which are likely over a year away from this area.

I will say 4 hrs is a min installation time. Mine was an easy installation. I have seen some installations take 7 hours. I was also thankful I had Verizon employees do the installation and not contractors. I saw some contractor installations and there were some major problems. FIOS and Verizon may end up with a damaged reputation if contractors keep messing up.

I was also worried about the battery back up "BBU" placement. But once the installers got there there was no problem as they placed it in a laundry service area. It cannot be placed outside. The Motorolla optical net work terminal "ONT" was placed in the same area as the old phone service box. I was fearful I was going to have to bring in an electrician to wire in the 110 voltage.

The BBU does power both the phone and the internet connection when the power goes out. (Not sure about TV part as we did not test that part). However you have to have the modem and all the computer stuff on a separate battery power supply, which some do.

One last note, it took some time for LAAG to get the City, Time Warner and Verizon to get the city channel 31 (like on Time Warner) to also be broadcast on FIOS. As of 11/15/08 it seems to be working so now we can finally tape the city council meetings broadcast live on Channel 31. Also for Lakewood FIOS users the city channel is on 31 just like with Time Warner. One problem is that neither the city nor Verizon have coordinated the scheduling menu so that feature is useless. It just say "local programming" for all times and dates. This requires you to do manual programming to record the meetings every two weeks. But of course the city does not want to make it easy to view those meetings as you might learn something, but that is another article.

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

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Has common sense vanished?

The only good thing about a November 25th reconsideration date (below) is we will likely have the final tally on all the damage from the fires of November (likely hundreds of millions). What is just one of those fires was started with fireworks? Even if they were not is 5 houses burned down worth it just for silly fundraising. NO. This is a case of the fireworks companies embedding themselves marketing wise with fundraising groups to insulate themselves from the common sense vote. Its a good strategy. Vote against your house burning down or poor little Timmy whose parents cant get a subsidized baseball uniform without the fireworks. (of course with the money they spent on fireworks they could have bought the uniform at full price)

Although we dont know who to attribute this quite it is somewhat appropriate here:
"A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the voters discover that they can vote themselves money from the public treasure. From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidates promising the most money from the public treasury, with the result that a democracy always collapses over loose fiscal policy followed by a dictatorship."
Alexander Taylor, 1778

In other words voters keep voting for freebies (or fundraising subsidies) until they kill off their government (or the environment) from spending. Now I can think of better examples of this in state government but you see the point.

Lakewood was a test case for Fontana. Hopefully Fontana learns from the Lakewood failure how to beat back the fireworks lobby and the groups they use to hide the peddling of their nasty product.

Fontana City Council to revisit fireworks ban
Josh Dulaney, Staff Writer
Article Created: 11/11/08

FONTANA - Although election season is over, voters here probably will get one more shot to cast their votes on a hot-button issue.

The deputy city clerk has announced that Citizens for a Safe 4th of July collected enough valid signatures in the summer calling for the City Council to either adopt an ordinance that would allow nonprofits to sell fireworks or allow residents to decide.

Sandra Medina, the deputy clerk, said the San Bernardino County Registrar of Voters Office would confirm this week that there were enough valid signatures.

The council last year unanimously voted to ban the sale of fireworks, effective July 5, because of the fire danger.

But the ban had another impact. Nonprofit groups such as school clubs and church ministries miss out on a major fundraiser.

The citizens' group, funded by Orange County-based TNT Fireworks, gathered more than 8,443 valid signatures necessary to bring the issue back before the Fontana council and, more than likely, voters.

The ordinance would allow nonprofits to again sell so-called "safe-and-sane" fireworks, with provisions for safety enforcement.

The council will determine Nov. 25 whether to adopt the ordinance, Medina said.

If it does not, the council on Dec. 9 will call for a special election, which must take place between 88 and 103 days from the time of the resolution, Medina said.

The election would take place in February, Medina said. The president of TNT (John Kelley) said Monday that because of little contact with city officials, he doesn't know what to expect at the Nov. 25 meeting, but the cost of an election might impact their decision.

"Certainly, there is a price tag for the city," John Kelly said.

Councilwoman Janice Rutherford agreed but said she supports bringing the ordinance before city voters, adding that there is a trade-off between celebrating July Fourth and public safety.

"As with any policy decision, there's a cost for acting and a cost for not acting," Rutherford said.

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

click here to receive LAAG posts by email

Celerate the wildfires with fireworks!

So let's imagine the marketing discussion at the Chinese fireworks makers US distributors: "You know we can just sell fireworks on 4th of July. We need to make more money. Our Chinese suppliers can make an unlimited amount of fireworks and want us to sell more. We need to shoot off fireworks on every holiday! In fact we should consider shooting off fireworks to celebrate the Santa Ana wind season and opening of high fire season...you know they are so safe we can shoot them off under any conditions.." The the marketing manager gave the guy that came up with that idea a big bonus. Oh and dont forget to issue a phony sentiment in a press release that "our prayers go out to the firestorm victims"

Oh you think we are joking? When you visit TNT's website these are the holidays that they "suggest" using fireworks to "celebrate":

* » April Fools' Day
* » Arbor Day (plant a tree then burn it down with fireworks)
* » Chinese New Year
* » Christmas
* » Cinco de Mayo
* » Columbus Day
* » Easter
* » Father's Day
* » Grandparent's Day
* » Groundhog Day
* » Halloween
* » Independence Day
* » Kwanzaa
* » Labor Day
* » Mardi Gras
* » Memorial Day
* » Mother's Day
* » New Year's Eve
* » Rosh Hashanah
* » Saint Patrick's Day
* » Spring
* » Summer Solstice
* » Thanksgiving Day
* » Valentine's Day
* » Veteran's Day

Fireworks during a fire? A Glendale resident isn't happy
November 16, 2008

The air around parts of Los Angeles was filled with smoke from brush fires Saturday.

The air in Glendale was filled with fireworks smoke.

The Americana at Brand shopping center kicked off its holiday season with a pyrotechnic display that sent neighbors running outside in alarm.

"It was really an inappropriate display. This was not the time to shoot off fireworks," Glendale resident John Barnes said. "The hotels around here were filled Saturday with fire evacuees."

Americana at Brand spokeswoman Jennifer Gordon said the pyrotechnics were part of a Christmas tree lighting ceremony that couldn't be rescheduled. "We weren't trying to be insensitive. My mother is one of those who had to evacuate because of the fires today."

Barnes was watching TV coverage of the fires when the fireworks went off. He grabbed his video camera and shot the display and the smoke the fireworks produced as evidence.

To him, the holiday event ended with a thud, not a boom.

--Bob Pool


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

click here to receive LAAG posts by email

LASD Crime lab busts no one but taxpayers

Every time we hear a story like the one below we hear the same line of BS from Baca...oh its not the lazy incompetent LASD employees its lack of "resources" (aka "money") Well lets see. The Sheriff's just opened a new $102 million dollar (11 million over budget) crime lab in LA county in May 2007 that was hailed as a "CSI like" facility and is touted as the largest municipal crime lab in the nation. Well just more proof that TV cop shows are nothing like reality. You see the CSI crime lab is similar to the one we the taxpayers built for LASD...the difference is that in CSI the TV show the crime lab employees really care about their work and are diligent about solving cases. But again thats the fantasy part. With respect to all the backlogged DNA I like how the headline is "may" be untested. They dont even know? Scary. Funny they did not just dump all the samples.

Also in 2004 voters passed Proposition 69 which requires convicted felons, some misdemeanor offenders and those arrested on rape or murder charges to provide a sample of their DNA, usually taken via cheek swab. This work is also backlogged.
Under Proposition 69, the funding to pay for processing all these new samples was supposed to come from the criminals themselves, through an increase of $1 on every $10 misdemeanor fine. This was expected to produce $25 million a year for the state “penalty pot,” but it has only yielded $7.5 million.

So once again voters are duped into voting for "solutions" (or needed "resources") that sound good on paper or in speeches but never quite turn out to be as good as promised by law enforcement as they are the ones who fail to make them work. Dont blame the taxpayers for trying.

Update 4-24-09: PBS "Now" show did a really good expose on this issue called "Justice Delayed". Mostly dealt with LAPD but they also mentioned the problem with LASD. It really makes you realize the scope of the problem on a human scale. Basically billions has been spent on the problem with very little to show for it. I guess we need more criminalists than cops on the street as the cops on the street are not the ones that solve crimes. Just ask the CSI TV folks.

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-dna13-2008nov13,0,279193.story
From the Los Angeles Times

L.A. County sheriff's officials acknowledge that genetic evidence in 5,635 rape cases may be untested

The department plans a case-by-case review to see which sexual assault kits remain unexamined. The revelation follows reports of a similar DNA backlog at the LAPD.
By Joel Rubin

November 13, 2008

The Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department, under pressure from county supervisors and watchdog groups to account for its handling of DNA evidence from sexual assault cases, acknowledged Wednesday it did not know whether genetic evidence from more than 5,600 rape cases had been examined.

In response to an inquiry by the Board of Supervisors last month, Sheriff's Department officials tallied 5,635 sexual assault evidence kits -- semen and other DNA samples collected by authorities from victims -- sitting in freezer storage facilities, Cmdr. Earl Shields said. The department must now manually compare that inventory with records from its crime laboratory to determine which kits remain unexamined, Shields told the board Wednesday.

"The bad news is we have 5,635 kits in a warehouse," Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky said. "The good news is we now know what has to be done."

The true size of the county's DNA backlog is probably significantly larger, said Sarah Tofte, a researcher with Human Rights Watch who has been pressing local law enforcement agencies around the country to address backlogs. The total announced Wednesday does not take into account the unknown number of sex crime kits that are in the hands of the more than 40 small police agencies in the Los Angeles area that rely on the sheriff's crime lab for analysis, she said.

Under a new policy ordered by Sheriff Lee Baca, all sexual assault kits gathered in the future will be tested -- a departure from a long-running practice in which the sheriff's crime lab analyzed evidence only after detectives handling a case requested it. Shields also said the department would analyze evidence from all kits currently in storage that are found to be untested, although he warned that such an effort would require additional funds to hire more analysts as well as outsourcing testing to private labs.

Unexamined kits hold potentially crucial information. Through a complex scientific process, DNA analysts can extract a person's genetic code from the collected samples and compare it to those of known felons that are kept in federal and state databases. When the DNA sample collected at a crime scene or from a victim's body matches a DNA profile of someone in the database, it offers prosecutors nearly irrefutable proof of their guilt. The evidence can also be used to confirm that someone has not falsely confessed to a crime or link someone to other unsolved cases.

The scrutiny of the Sheriff's Department comes on the heels of a similar look into the DNA backlog at the Los Angeles Police Department, where DNA evidence from roughly 7,000 rapes and other violent crimes remained untested.

A recent audit of the backlog by City Controller Laura Chick found that 200 potential sexual assault cases had not been prosecuted because LAPD officials failed to meet legal deadlines to test DNA evidence.

In response to the mounting criticism, city politicians and LAPD Chief William J. Bratton last month approved a plan to pay private labs for more testing and to hire additional staff for the LAPD's crime lab. Several million dollars more would be needed in coming years to meet the LAPD's goal of eliminating its backlog by 2013, officials said.

Sheriff's officials in recent months have tried to downplay the size and seriousness of their backlog and resisted comparisons to the LAPD, where the crime lab has fallen behind on requests from detectives to test DNA evidence from about 500 rapes, homicides and other violent crimes.

The Sheriff's Department has only "10 to 20" such cases, Shields said.

Department officials have said they suspect that nearly all the untested evidence kits are from cases in which the detectives have not felt the need to ask for DNA analysis.

"We still believe we will find that untested rape kits are untested because they are of no probative value," said sheriff's spokesman Steve Whitmore. "But we want to make sure what we believe to be right is right."

Shields conceded to supervisors, however, that the Sheriff's Department would not know for certain the status of each rape investigation until it completed its case-by-case review. In cases where there is untested evidence, department officials plan to contact the investigators to find out which have been solved already without the help of DNA and which remain open. As the department attempts to clear the backlog, genetic evidence from cases at risk of expiring because of state laws or from cases still under investigation would be among those tested first, officials said.

Tofte and other advocates for rape victims praised Baca for the changes to his department's DNA policy, but urged the sheriff to hire more investigators to avoid being inundated with new leads in cases as the DNA backlog is cleared.

"Every day we see new victims come in, and we wonder whether that person had to be raped because evidence of their attacker is sitting there in storage," said Gail Abarbanel, founder of the Rape Treatment Center at the Santa Monica-UCLA Medical Center.

Rubin is a staff writer.


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

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Dunrobin explosion: Northern Calif. version

Ahh fireworks. Don't you just love them especially when in the hands of people who dont know of Darwin's Law. This story reminds us very much of the Dunrobin street explosion in March 2006. The differences are that the explosion was smaller in Sunnyvale and caused less damage to surrounding structures (due to less explosive material) and the suspect in Sunnyville was injured more severely than in the Lakewood explosion.

Police say fireworks caused fire in Sunnyvale's downtown

By Cody Kraatz
http://www.mercurynews.com/news/ci_10907024?nclick_check=1
Sunnyvale Sun
Article Launched: 11/05/2008

Sunnyvale's Department of Public Safety is investigating alleged criminal possession of explosives and/or fireworks after an explosion burned two men in a downtown Sunnvyale apartment, said DPS Capt. Doug Moretto.

Fire crews responded to the explosion in a lower-level apartment at 415 S. Sunnyvale Ave. on Oct. 26 at 7:25 a.m. The fire was quickly contained and extinguished.

Two men who were in the apartment were burned. Both were treated at the scene and taken to Valley Medical Center in San Jose.

David Weist, 48, is suspected of possessing and tampering with an illegal explosive, probably a large firework. Moretto said last week that he had not been arrested.

Weist's roommate, Dan Downen, had just finished wiping and hosing burns, blood and bits of finger off the walls last Thursday.

He said that Weist, whom he had not seen since the incident, had been in an induced coma and the previous day had emerged from a surgery that left him with only a pinky finger on one hand. The other man, who did not live there, had been treated for burns on his back, said Downen, who was home at the time of the explosion.

"I swear to God, it looked like my wall swelled like 2 feet. I went over there an opened the door, and there was nothing but smoke. [Weist's clothing] was on fire. I grabbed him, threw him down, ripped off the flames and patted him out," he said, adding that Weist had a history of "playing with fireworks." Moretto said.
DPS investigators, along with Santa Clara County bomb and fire investigators and the Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco and Firearms, were trying to determine what kind of explosive device Weist had.


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

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Lakewood City Council nomination period closes December 5, 2008

The nomination period for candidates for City Council opens on November 10th and closes on December 5th 2008. We have not seen this information posted anywhere else on the internet other than our site. Nothing at the city website or in emails from the city "news fodder" email machine. Nothing in the Press Telegram. This is no doubt intentional as all the incumbents want challengers to have no time advantage. They are hoping that challengers miss the very small time window for the nomination period above.

There is no filing fee to run for City Council. The only cost paid to the City would be from candidates wishing to include a Candidate’s Statement in the sample ballot. Potential candidates must go into see the city clerk to obtain a “candidate’s packet” which is a compilation of material from various sources.

The process of issuing nomination papers is not one that can be completed remotely, the potential candidate (or designee) must appear in person at the clerk's office or they may designate (in writing) someone to collect the information for them.

We will be providing more information on this process as we move forward but we felt it was important to get this information out to potential candidates as soon as possible in order to start vetting the candidates and to insure that they have as good as chance at winning as the three incumbents up for re-election (Steve Croft, Todd Rogers and Diane DuBois)


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

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Lakewood Measure "L" (utility users tax) results

It looks like this tax and a host of others will be increasing during the recession. No idea what Lakewood will tax next under Measure L as it is written to broaden the scope of what "utilities" and services are taxable. And don't expect any accountability from this city, who's motto should be city of obfuscation, the opposite of transparency. You never get a straight answer and to get it you have to pry it out of them. So dont go looking for where this money is really going. Its theirs now and they will do with it what they want. You had the chance to make the city accountable and once again the voters failed.

As of Date: 11/05/2008 Time: 03:24

LAKEWOOD MEASURE L - COMMUNICATION USERS' TAX -
(MAJORITY OF VOTES CAST) -

Yes	21,848	78.74%
No	5,898	21.46%

TOTAL PRECINCTS 52 PRECINCTS REPORTING 52

REGISTRATION 42,237

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

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Change is here...in many ways

Well we had to laugh at this news tidbit which was over looked by most in all the excitement tonight. We were wondering if this was a silent nod to LAAG's anti fireworks position, a snub to China's fireworks exporters or an acknowledgement of Al Gore's position on global climate change. (humor intended here) In any event we find it refreshing that Obama felt that he did not need to cover a million people in the waiting crowd with smoke and ash to make a point. Words were patriotic/historic enough. We have said it before and we will say it again. Patriotism has nothing to do with fireworks. Its standing for principles.

Obama Canceled Fireworks for This Evening

November 05, 2008 1:05 AM

Given all the pomp and pageantry of past events for President-elect Obama, why was tonight's celebration speech so subdued?

That was intentional.

In fact. fireworks were originally planned for this evening, but President-elect Obama canceled them.

"Given the sobriety of the times, he didn't feel they were appropriate," senior adviser David Axelrod tells ABC News.


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

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