Buy Gas Masks, Antonio

Last week was a horrible one for Los Angeles and anyone who plans to live here past 2010, when Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa dreams of commuting to his new job in Sacramento. Go ahead and pull out your Scorecard for Death and Stupidity and mark minus 10 points for clean air and a negative five for education.

For some reason, Angelenos are too fatalistic or blissfully out of the loop to revolt in the streets when the mayor blesses more heart-stopping port pollution – hooray, he forced the polluters to buy filters for public schools and double-pane windows for residents stuck in the Combat Zone of Capitalism, but why not make them pay for gas masks, too, so the kids can play at recess? – or incites more L.A. Unified political hijinks like his newest, sending his education czar into the quagmire known as L.A. Unified, to fill the No. 2 slot! Did he buy him a bulletproof vest?

You call this good government or cause for a recall? One enviro we greatly respect, the Coalition for Clean Air’s Martin Schlageter, says the deal allowing the TraPac shipping terminal to expand is actually a good one: “We’re never going to get back to the perfect starting point. But we have an opportunity to redress some wrongs, and we’re going to seize that.” Well put, Martin, but we shouldn’t be so accommodating to the economic growth that sickens and kills thousands of us. Maybe we’re all so content absorbing this civic drama in our comfy chairs because: (a.) We’re used to second-rate decisions that threaten our lives and our children’s education; (b.) We admire politicians whose sense of loyalty to the electorate rivals that of a horny trout; (c.) We figure we might make a buck off the bad deals and retire to Montana before it gets really bad; (d.) Our screenplay was rejected for the 14th time and we plan to leave L.A. as soon as the next standby seat to anywhere opens up on JetBlue; or (e.) We’re waiting for the Times to run a front-page retraction saying none of it’s true anyways. (Answer at the end. Don’t skip the rest of this truly profound shit or the page will self-destruct!)

We have a mayor with his pinkie in L.A. and (most of) the rest of his body and mind thinking of his imaginary post-L.A. career. One general rule guides him: If it can’t be accomplished by June 8, 2010, the date of the primary, it’s not worth doing. The mayor’s so obsessed with short-term results that he makes your normal Ritalin-swillers look like Dostoevsky devotees.

But talk about shortsighted and

inept. With his anointing by Mayor V., a 75-year-old relic by the name of Ramon Cortines returned to the top ranks of L.A. Unified and is now within a heartbeat of the top job he held for six months in 2000. Why does the mayor-controlled school board lack the balls to outright can the No.1 incompetent, Admiral David Brewer III?

With the right deal, maybe charter school guru Steve Barr, the founder of Green Dot, would take the job. It’s time he declared war on the comatose school district from inside the building. Let the school board and teachers union prove they’re devoted to helping children learn before all the jobs go to China and India, and not just protecting their turf and

asses. But this bad move by the mayor amounts to only a misdemeanor count.

Here’s the felony: The mayor joined a coalition of labor and environmental interests – watch out when they get together – and sold out health and community concerns to growth and campaign dollars at the Port of Los Angeles. One of the environmental mainstays – the Natural Resources Defense Council – went in the tank for the mayor, praising the deal to allow the $150 million, 67-acre expansion of the TraPac shipping terminal at the Port of Los Angeles as “green growth.” We’re talking hundreds more polluting trucks crowding onto the toxic 110 and 710 to spread their deadly fumes all the way to the Inland Empire (of Nothing!). Perhaps the enviros have in mind the particular shade of green bodies turn when starved of oxygen in the final throes of smog-induced respiratory diseases. TraPac bought off its critics by agreeing to set up a $6 million trust fund to pay for particulate filters at public schools and other health measures created by the deadly stew it will create. Too bad the NRDC agreed to drop its lawsuit against the expansion.

So why weren’t we all marching in the streets last week? The answer: (f.) None of the above. Angelenos really want a mayor who can take his ambition out of overdrive and stick around and solve a problem or two. If Mayor V. would only listen to people rather than polls, he’d call a press conference tomorrow to announce that, if he wins re-election in 2009, he’ll serve his full term.

And if he refuses to make the promise, bring on the opposition and cook his ass; he’ll deserve to get shoved aside next year by someone devoted to the long-term interests of L.A. So long, oversized power glands.

Daylight robbers hit LAPD

Anybody who’d ever heard of the corners cut by Tutor-Saliba on the construction of the Red Line subway during the 1990s might have thought twice about having the mammoth firm bid on any more public construction projects.

Few lessons are learned the first time in the city of Los Angeles. So now we’re stuck with a 10-story police headquarters already $150 million over budget. 8

Tutor-Saliba was the sole bidder on the project in 2006. If Al Qaeda were the sole bidder to run a school of diplomacy, would the terrorist outfit get the contract? It’s iffy. How much better is Tutor-Saliba? I’m not sure.

But just how lousy a deal Los Angeles got came to light in an audit released by City Controller Laura Chick, the meanest woman in L.A. Chick urged the city to do a better job on outreach – that is, let the goddamn companies know a massive building about to go put out to bid. Don’t wait until the final month or so because, as was the case here, the firms get tied up with other projects.

The city was too scared to reject the bid, so the Bureau of Engineering tried to negotiate a better price. The drones shaved off a measly $18 million, which isn’t much, but Chick’s investigators found most of the money showed up in different parts of the contract. Wrote auditors: “ … the majority of the reduced amount represents cost shifting and accelerated payments.”

C’mon guys, treat the people’s money like your own.

 

Dirty Moves

Wouldn’t you rather pay 10 bucks to watch Mark Ridley-Thomas and Bernard Parks run laps on the track at the Coliseum than see the state legislature sucked into their power game? Use the money going to restoring trauma care at the old King/Drew Medical Center that closed last year because of Second District County Supervisor Yvonne Burke’s decade of screwups.

This race would be much more productive than the self-serving legislation Ridley-Thomas is pushing that would steal the Coliseum and place it in the hands of the state. The whole deal smacks of campaign nonsense, seeing how Ridley-Thomas’ chief rival in the June 3 primary to replace Burke is Parks, the chairman of the Coliseum Commission.

Ridley-Thomas wants to abolish the commission and put the home to the 1924 and 1984 Olympics into the hands of a nine-member Exposition Park Authority. Its members would include five people appointed by the state, the Second District county supervisor, the Eighth District city councilmember and two well-heeled public members selected by the nature of their donations. Sounds like a breeding ground for corruption.

County supervisors unanimously denounced the power play Tuesday, calling it “illegal” and “totally unwarranted.” Ridley-Thomas wants to make it seem like it’s all about saving Trojan football. “This is USC-friendly legislation.”

Screw the legislation, and screw the race. A boxing match sounds better. Anything but involving the legislature and blowing taxpayer money on a local political vendetta.

Advice to The ‘Times’

Goddamit. The Times’ lawyers have soured me on one of my favorite words – “purported” – by using it four times in Monday’s retraction of Chuck Philips’ story. Here’s some advice: Next time you’ve got a whopper of a story like the Tupac Shakur saga, combine the front-page apology with the front-page retraction. No need to run both – two weeks apart. It’s overkill and a downer for all. Some sharp, strategic thinking would have actually spared that space on Monday’s Calendar cover for a real news story. Any more of this nonsense and Chuck could end up the guy with the most righteous claim to a legal settlement. And one last thing: Next time, give the lawyers a byline so readers know who to blame for the duller than usual prose.

Send insults and ammo to BigAl@lasniper.com