Start the Revolution

Let’s cut L.A.’s politicians some slack. They aren’t really a cage full of inept, ethically bankrupt, power-mad egomaniacs out for themselves every moment of the day. And maybe not even during every waking hour. Cut to their core and we’d find more human than weasel. Here’s the real problem overlooked all these years, as the skies filled with killer particulates, as teachers abandoned students and roads gummed up with too many cars: We’ve got a bunch of very talented leaders in L.A., they just aren’t in the right jobs. Plus, some high-achievers should be drafted to clean up messes created by the worst ones. And L.A. should tap into real star power for a roster that would make us a truly world-class city.

Mike Feuer

Old job: Assemblyman, 42nd District

New job: Cardinal, Archdiocese of Los Angeles

Face it, it probably will take a Jew to rid the house that Roger Mahony built of the filth and moral decay caked on the marble columns and altars from Santa Barbara to San Pedro. Mike’s doing good work in Sacramento, but this higher calling beckons. As a Jew, Mike won’t get too bogged down in meaningless doctrinal disputes. The big plus: When was the last time you heard of a Jew molesting anyone? We can expect him to be zero-tolerant when it comes to very un-priest-like sex acts with children. And, in homage to Capturing the Friedmans, the 2003 documentary about the 1980s molestation case against Arnold Friedman and his son Jesse, which is, by the way, the last high-profile case involving Jewish molesters, maybe Mike can produce Capturing Mahony, a fundraising film with a hopeful title as a way to help pay for the billions in settlement and legal fees run up by the scandal. Who knows, this righteous calling could even appeal to Mike’s sense of, well, superiority, which rankled some of his colleagues on the City Council back in the day. Be nice to Mike. We expect the job transition to have some rough spots given the strong religious fervor gripping the country right now. But, in the end, he may discover more commonality between Judaism and Catholicism. After all, they both have the guilt thing going strong.

Salma Hayek

Old job: Executive producer, Ugly Betty

New job: Mayor, city of Los Angeles

Oh, how we all wanted it to be true when we saw the Newsweek cover of Mayor V on the beach right after he won the city’s top job in 2005. Finally, after a string of bureaucrats and people-averse politicians, L.A.’s mayor was a star, with his future bright and shining. But the tarnish really built up in four years. We now know that what we need is a mayor with both star quality and a powerful mind at ease with the top issues of the day. Fiercely independent, the 41-year-old executive producer of Ugly Betty is one of the best-looking people in Hollywood and can deliver rousing speeches without resorting to note cards. She can pull us from our civic funk and deliver on a dream or two. When she arrived here from Mexico more than a decade ago with already a well-earned acting reputation, she showed the humanity and modesty we haven’t seen at City Hall in years. She’s gone on to testify before the House Judiciary Committee on behalf of battered women and before a congressional subcommittee advocating for immigrants’ rights. Can you imagine the current occupant of the Getty House ever saying what she told Movieline in 1997: “I kept thinking, I’m famous, but am I good?”

Bill Bratton and Laura Chick

Old jobs: Police Chief and City Controller

New jobs: Co-superintendents, L.A. Unified

Where are the federal judges and their consent decrees when you need them? Most of L.A. Unified’s key players, including the union that protects a boatload of bad teachers who should be shipped off to oblivion, must go. No better team exists in L.A. to root out the deplorable conditions and nourish the flowers of reform than the police chief and the city’s meanest woman. Laura can shine the light on classroom failures and district office fraud in a series of six audits her first year, from exposing third-world conditions in classrooms to the short work days of countless administrators. One audit will simply show how many cars are parked in the district garage after 5:01 p.m. every day. Another how many classes start late as teachers wander in without their wits or lesson plans. And the chief, who showed his mettle by admitting within 24 hours that his force blew it during the police-induced May Day riot in 2007, will take names and bounce heads on his way to returning discipline to the schools – and district offices. Maybe one of them can even figure out how to bust up the district without falling prey to the S.F. Valley right-leaning ideologues out to tear the city apart. But the first assignment for Superintendents Bill and Laura will be to become role models for students struggling with the difference between right and wrong before moving on to the Pythagorean theorem.

Helen Mirren

Old job: Actress, Prime Suspect and

The Queen

New job: Police chief, city of Los

Angeles

Tough, independent and one of the deepest thinkers in Hollywood, Mirren will sweep into Parker Center with the presence of, well, a queen. She is unflappable, unwavering, and will stand as tall against the influences of gangs as she will ward off interference from the Mayor’s Office and City Council. In real life, she hails from Russian aristocracy and probably has read more of the classics than 95 percent of our city’s leaders combined. Her uncompromising and tenacious character Detective Chief Inspector Jane Tennison in Prime Suspect will show the strong-willed battery of deputy chiefs who’s boss. And she can at least act like she possesses the split personality needed at the top. In a New Yorker profile, she talked of her role in The Queen, and could have been talking about the top cop job. “I didn’t want to sublimate my ego, my vanity. You know that kind of ensemble feeling – ‘We’re all in this together.’ No, actually, we’re not all in this together. I am the queen. I am the star, and, you know, suck it up.” Then she went on to try to have it both ways: “I don’t behave like that at work. I’m no Ethel Merman.” The bad guys, whether on the street or at City Hall, will never beat no-nonsense Dame Helen. And that includes the whiny fellows at the Police Protective League.

Antonio Villaraigosa

Old job: Mayor

New job: Peanut man, Dodger Stadium, field level

Compare Mayor V’s promises to his accomplishments, and he usually comes up shy of his goals by at least 50 feet or so. If this were Dodger Stadium, that would land the mayor right about in the field level section. Let him stay there for a season or two. He seems happiest when mixing with the public anyways. What better stage for his sparkling personality than to strap a heavy box of peanuts around his neck and watch him provide Dodger fans with instant gratification? This venue also will give us a chance to see if the mayor really has a heart. Will he spot a poor kid enough money for a $4.50 bag of peanuts – without calling a pre-game press conference to laud his selflessness?

Admiral David Brewer III

Old job: Superintendent, L.A. Unified

New job: Day laborer, Echo Park

The namby-pamby school board can’t get up the nerve to do it, so I will. Admiral, here are your walking papers. Your next job: cleaning up the Echo Park neighborhood laid waste by L.A. Unified. Row after row of once-beautiful Craftsman homes near Sunset and Marathon, where your district says an elementary school is badly needed even though enrollments are falling faster than morale and student achievement, lie in near ruin. Graffiti, broken windows, and the general decay caused by years of inattention stand – barely – as a testimony to all that’s wrong with L.A. Unified. Your job is to shore up and protect the neighborhood, and maybe call in the city building and safety department to cite the school district for unsafe, unsightly conditions created by this stalled, unneeded project.

Leroy Baca

Old job: Sheriff, L.A. County

New job: Owner, the Healing Reefer, West Hollywood

Hey, I have no evidence that our sheriff is a pothead, but sometimes you can’t help but wish he were high when he orders his deputies to carry that Zen-like code of conduct in their wallets and yet seems to ignore it in his dealings with celebrities.

Raymond G.

Fortner Jr.

Old job: County Counsel

New job: Doorman, Standard Hotel

Few people have ever heard of Raymond. He’s the enabler who often feeds the county supervisors shoddy legal advice that allows them to go into closed session to conduct the public’s business without the glare of scrutiny. He must learn how to open doors to the public, even when he knows his bosses would probably like to nail them shut for privacy. At this popular hotel, he’ll push open the door 500 times or more on a good day.

Ace Smith

Old job: Campaign consultant

New job: Theology professor, Fuller Seminary

The guru of opposition research, Ace makes the world around us a little less civil every time he jumps in a race. Instead of forcing him to choose between two of his beloved clients – Jerry Brown and Mayor V – when they run against each other for governor in 2010, and fret over whose secrets he’ll divulge, Ace finds a tenured professorship as a theology professor at Fuller Seminary in Pasadena. He can take his gutter-raking talents to new depths and do an archeological dig or two. Let him rid so many Americans of the religious beliefs they cling to in times like these with classes like this one: “Abraham’s stash of hallucinogens and where the crazy-ass voice telling him to kill his son really came from.”

Bill Rosendahl

Old Job: 11th District City Councilman

New job: Sheriff, L.A. County

With his booming voice and big frame, Bill only needs a uniform and a badge to strike a model of authority. Plus, as the lone voice on the City Council who fought, and lost, and was later vindicated by a higher court, on behalf of the hundreds of mostly elderly and infirm tenants evicted from the WWII-era Lincoln Place apartment village in Venice three years ago, Bill’s earned his stripes. He takes the high road – even when it means leaving all of his colleagues behind.

Zev Yaroslavsky

Old job: County Supervisor

New job: CEO of King/Harbor Medical Center

Look, despite the noises emanating for months from the blogosphere, this guy isn’t running for mayor next year. He should resign from the Board of Supervisors and move to a vacant wing of King/Harbor Medical Center and plot, around the clock, the opening of the hospital needed by 1 million people of South L.A. His new contract will call for him to manage the hospital for five years. As for his replacement on the board: I appoint Bernard Parks, who got fewer votes than Mark Ridley-Thomas in Tuesday’s election. Maybe Yvonne Burke can find him a suitable rental in the third district to make it all seem perfectly legal.

Roger Mahony

Old job: Cardinal, Los Angeles Archdiocese

New job: Chaplain, San Quentin’s death row

This dank unit overlooking the bay will probably be the closest that our fallen disciple Roger gets to his just fate as the world-class protector of priests who sexually assaulted hundreds of boys and girls. He’ll need to surrender his red robes for orange ones.

Send insults, ammo – and job offers – to BigAl@lasniper.com.