Cross-posted at RonKayeLA
It was one of those gloriously only in L.A. moments when our hypocrisy and contradictions were on full display before the world.
The city’s business community filled the City Council Chamber for two hours before the regular Council meeting last Wednesday to present a report on the city’s economy broken down by all 15 districts (2011LACityCouncilDistrictsEconomicReport.pdf) and propose a long list of ideas (AccessLAagenda.pdf)on how to stimulate the economy – one of the nation’s worst with poverty and under/unemployment rates approaching 25 percent – and create jobs.
“We had one message that resonated throughout the morning — JOBS,” says L.A. Chamber of Commerce President and CEO Gary Toebben in his weekly newsletter. “We presented the City Council with a list of eight things they can do to create jobs, stimulate the economy and improve the quality of life for thousands of Angelenos.”
“The response from the City Council was very positive and we left feeling hopeful as Councilmembers opined that the business community’s message was heard loud and clear. There was a strong commitment to eliminate the devastating unemployment faced in Los Angeles by reducing red tape and supporting projects that enable businesses to hire more employees.
“But that was in the morning.”
As the Council meeting ended, Council President and wannabe Mayor Eric Garcetti joined by go-along-to-get-along Councilman Bill Rosendahl went down to City Hall’s North Lawn with the support of five other Council members to affirm their total support without reservation for the Occupy Los Angeles protesters camped out at Temple and Spring streets.
They produced a resolution to be voted on this Wednesday with 25 paragraphs starting with “Whereas” that affirm every element of the occupation movement’s rage against corporate greed and a single paragraph that starts with “Now Therefore” proposing a course of action.
“NOW, THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED, with the concurrence of the Mayor, that by the adoption of this Resolution, the City of Los Angeles hereby stands in SUPPORT for the continuation of the peaceful and vibrant exercise in First Amendment Rights carried out by “Occupy Los Angeles” on the City Hall lawn, and urges the City Departments responsible for completing the implementation plan associated with the Responsible Banking measure (CF 09-0234) that was approved by the Council on March s”, 2010, which would address some of the concerns of the “Occupy Los Angeles” demonstrators by demanding accountability and results from the Banks we invest taxpayer dollars in, to bring the Responsible Banking measure for a final vote to the Council by October 28, 2011.”
Read that again if you didn’t get it. It says the Council supports Occupy L.A.’s “peaceful and vibrant exercise” of their First Amendment rights, nothing else that they do but what they have a constitutional right to do.
What a joke! It would be news if the Council went on record as admitting they don’t give a damn what anybody thinks or says unless they pay them for the privilege like the unions and AEG and other corporations and developers.
And then there’s the last line, the punch line, promising “to bring the Responsible Banking measure for a final vote to the Council by October 28, 2011.”
This is nothing but a shakedown of the banking industry for political campaign contributions line and an effort to capitalize on the broad anger over how the banks caused our economic calamity and prospered from it.
It is the three-year-old brain child of indicted felon and pseudo-socialist Richard Alarcon (who else?) and was actually approved by the Council 18 months ago but never implemented, in no small part because it’s illegal since the city has no authority to regulate banking, no right to demand detailed proprietary information, no ability to make sense of the millions of transactions if it did.
“The stated goal of the new banking ordinance is to reduce foreclosures in Los Angeles,” Toebben writes.
“But what the ordinance will do is create a new city bureaucracy that taxpayers cannot afford; assign already burdened City staff with collecting reporting documents they do not have time or expertise to review; evaluate banking services with criteria that violate state law; and put small banks at a severe disadvantage when compared to larger institutions.
“Here is what the proposed banking ordinance will not do: prevent one single foreclosure.”
Toebben concludes:
“Instead of looking for ways to spend City resources on a task the federal government is responsible for doing, we suggest the City Council and staff concentrate on facilitating private sector job creation. Having a job is the first step to gaining and maintaining home ownership.”
It isn’t just the business community that sees through the thin veil of lip service intended to deceive.
Several Occupy L.A. protesters showed up at City Council on Tuesday, when the resolution was supposed to be considered, and denounced the Council for its corruption, for its being part of the system that has caused the crisis in America by its coziness with the unions, developers and corporations that have pushed the nation to the brink.