Countdown to a Crucifixion
L.A. Sniper: Can Steve the Slug nail The Bad Cardinal?
D.A. Steve Cooley's tough talk last week equating Cardinal Roger Mahony with evil incarnate didn't fool us. For more than five years Steve the Slug has endlessly circled the altar without charging The Bad Cardinal. And, now, throttled by a three-year statute of limitations, it's all but too late. Steve can say what he wants when the TV cameras are rolling, but it'll take an act of the gods for the D.A. to turn up any fresh instances in the last three years where Mahony covered up the sexual exploits of one of his priests.
Steve the Slug's saber-rattling about the cardinal's transgressions last week seemed misleading and duplicitous. "I thought if that's the case, why haven't you gotten off your duff and done something?" said attorney Richard Farnell, a former prosecutor and now a trial lawyer in Newport Beach. Steve, you owe it to taxpayers to explain what you've been doing for the past five years. A request to interview the D.A. was rejected and his spokeswoman, Sandi Gibbons, said it would be impossible to say how much time or money have been spent on the case; of course, that's not true, though it might take the county Auditor-Controller's Office to get to the bottom of things.
But who can blame Steve the Slug for not wanting to take down the most powerful Catholic in L.A. and risk alienating thousands of voters? Perhaps only a prosecutor worthy of sainthood could have handled such a high calling, not one with a record of cowering in the face of power.
Listen up, Steve. Now that the $660- million settlement has stoked the flames of reform, it's time to settle on driving Mahony from office. (We suspect the deal will actually cost more than $1 billion, including what some estimate at $400 million in legal, PR fees, though the Archdiocese dismisses our arithmetic as "absolutely not true at all.") Stop all this talk about charging him with a crime. You never meant it before, and now it's all but impossible. Instead, consider it your mission to rid Angelenos of The Bad Cardinal. We bet you'll find a forgiving public willing to let you slide for blowing millions of taxpayers' dollars on a dead-end investigation if you can evict the top tenant of the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels.
Starting today, negotiate a deal with the cardinal that calls for his resignation in return for no more empty talk about charges. At the same time, announce that you are asking the County Counsel's Office to convene a civil grand jury to examine your office's response to the scandal. Make yourself the target of the investigation. That's right, an intensive review of how well or poorly you did your job. Let them subpoena Mahony. Maybe he won't take the Fifth since this is no longer a criminal investigation.
The resulting grand jury report will be devastating. It won't matter that the statute of limitations has run on the obstruction of justice charges. The details of The Bad Cardinal's actions - and his failure to act in a responsible manner and summon the police to Archdiocese offices countless times to investigate child-rape charges - will provoke public demands to banish Mahony.
Don't misunderstand us. We would love for The Bad Cardinal to be brought to justice and receive the maximum sentence after a very public trial. But we'll settle on shoving him - minus his red robes - into exile, and learning, once and for all, what you've been doing for the past five years.
Get to Work, Antonio
Give Sexy Antonio a hotel full of Mirthala Salinases. Just keep them out of City Hall, and we won't even raise an eyebrow. When will our mayor get back to the tough duties of his job? Let him do all the empty, feel-good public appearances, from unveiling a mural at a youth center in Sylmar to showing up for the grand-opening of a Ralphs market downtown to towing cars on traffic-clogged Crenshaw. But where was the mayor last Thursday, July 19, when Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger set out to steal money from the bond measure voters approved last November for transportation projects? Remember Antonio and Arnold campaigning together for Proposition 1B, to the despair of Phil Angelides? And the scenes on the TV news in February, when Antonio, fighting to make sure L.A. got its fair share of the money, stood in traffic lanes on Wilshire Boulevard and passed out fliers to surprised motorists? He won that battle and got money for carpool lanes on the San Diego Freeway. But last week when Arnold came up with a sneaky plan to effectively swipe $1.2 billion from the $20-billion Proposition 1B, the mayor was silent. No gimmicky press conferences. No trips to Sacramento. It fell to County Supervisor Zev Yaroslavksy to call the deal for what it was: a classic, smoke-filled-room case of bait-and-switch. In the short term, the theft threatens to delay various road projects and the extension of the Expo Line light rail project that would connect Culver City and Santa Monica; longterm, it gives skeptical voters a decent reason to oppose any future ballot measures asking for transit money. The mayor's absence from the debate does nothing to restore confidence - in his leadership or the system.
WeHo's Judiciary Committee
The West Hollywood City Council would do better to focus on solving the annoyances of its congested, overdeveloped city and not blow another minute on national politics. Sure, it's tempting to hop on the impeachment bandwagon, as the city did last week, becoming the first one in Southern California to call for the heads of George Bush and Dick Cheney. But Congress can't even pass a watered-down resolution to leave Iraq. Where will it find the resolve to boot the crooked pair from office before their terms are up? It makes more sense to develop and support a strong Democratic presidential contender, with a plan to flee Iraq, develop a national health-care system for all and to fund social programs that will restore stability to America's middle and lower classes before they lose their jobs, homes and shirts to globalization. All of the impeachment chatter won't address these forces that tear at our country. Why do progressives suffer from such attention deficit disorders? Hold on, 2008 is almost here.
Appoint this, Bill
The next time your lungs burn from smog, thank Bill Burke, the well-connected president of the L.A. Marathon who's made a career out of doing more for his friends and corporate interests than the public he's supposed to serve. This guy seems to have lifetime tenure for powerful posts. Whether he sits on Southern California's smog board or the state Coastal Commission, Burke is the man who gives back to those who appoint him. A year ago, he and his colleagues on the smog board gave Assembly Speaker Fabian Nunez's wife a $125,000 contract to organize clean-air conferences; last week, Nunez gave Burke another four-year term on the Coastal Commission. And as the L.A. Times' Patrick McGreevy reported, two members of the State Assembly - Mervyn Dymally, D-Compton, and Nell Soto, D-Pomona - are pushing legislation that would lift term limits and give Bill another term on the smog board. We wanted to find out the 68-year-old Burke's secret, but he didn't return our calls. In a 2004 interview, when confronted with a similar set of facts, Burke told us: "What you're really saying is, I shouldn't serve." Well put, Bill.
Hey Sheriff, steal this newspaper
Sheriff Lee Baca, like a chronic abuser, lashes out at those nearest him, even though they aren't the source of his real problems. He should worry about the rash of inmate deaths in the county jail system and ignore the political shots that his deputies' union fire at him from its website - alads.org. Lee overreacted to the criticism emanating from the rank-and-file and blocked the website from the department's computers. C'mon Lee, can't you find a better way to remember the death of Chadwick Shane Cochran, one of 15 inmates to die in county jails since 2000, than to stifle the First Amendment rights of your critics? Cochran's family sure did last week. They got a $1 million settlement from the county. We tried to talk to Thin Skin Lee about censorship and suggest that he might consider early retirement, but couldn't get past his secretary or public information officer.
Published: 07/26/2007
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