Zuma Dogg Year End Review: Antonio Villaraiogsa's Planning Department Under Gail Goldberg ("F" minus)

[Pictured: Don't be fooled by the arrogant look in this picture: She's clueless and DESTROYING the City of Los Angeles with her boy Chumptonio Dumaraigosa.]

GAIL GOLDBERG'S L.A. CITY PLANNING DEPARTMENT REVIEW FOR 2010 - PLANNING FOR DISASTER:

2010 is about to go down in history as the worst municipal crisis in U.S. history.

As the city is pushing over 2,400 employees into early retirement, it's not just about the sheer numbers of city workers who will be leaving the workforce, but the fact that the most experienced and knowledgeable city workers (the people REALLY running the city) are the one's leaving, and the newer, less experienced dummies will be the ones left in charge to try and keep things a float.

And based on the horror story Zuma Dogg heard today regarding the present and future of the L.A. City Planning Department under Villaraigosa's gal, Gail Goldberg, I feel compelled to issue an alert to all those who will be relying on the Planning Department, one way, or the other.

GAIL GOLDBERG:

* Demoralizes the best workers.

* Most experienced workers who are running things are being pushed out by Gail to make way for her new, "shut up and do what I say," puppet planners.

* These new planning department workers do not know what they are doing, in reality, if left on their own without the veteran workers who really do the work. ("They know nothing," is the way ONE person put it.)

* Goldberg replaced beloved, knowledgeable Planning LEGEND Bob Genoviche who was retired last year with some Gail Goldberg "yes, m'aam," butt-kisser with only a few years experience, passing over natural shoe-ins for the job (as in the people with much more experience in this complicated department).

* Goldberg described as "incapable" who only wants butt-kissers in the jobs, not seniors who know what they are doing. The most knowlegeable workers are being PUSHED OUT THE DOOR via ERIP (Early Retirement).

* "She's only good at PR and has NO idea what she's doing," is ONE way Gail was described to ZD by those who know her.

* Community Plans is four years in the working and NO WHERE NEAR COMPLETION. (Will be ANOTHER 4 years!)

* GAIL HAS, "NO TIME FOR WORK LIKE "COMMUNITY PLAN" BECAUSE TOO BUSY ATTENDING CONFERENCES -- AND DOING PR," (LIKE JUST HER CHUMP THUG BOSS ANTONIO!)

* LOSS OF WORKERS in 2010 will basically be like throwing department into quicksand. (Same with Building & Safety. WILL NOT BE ABLE TO GET ANYTHING DONE!!!)

* "EVERY PLANNING PROJECT IS APPROVED BY DEPARTMENT BECASUE OF ARM TWISTING FROM THE MAYOR. MANY PROJECTS WOULD NEVER BE APPROVED," (IF VILLAR WASN'T A THUG MAYOR PUSHING DEPARTMENTS AROUND!)

* ADU -(GRANNY FLATS): A DISASTER THAT MUST BE FOUGHT! How do you DESTROY the entire city, with all the added TAXATION ON THE ALREADY OVERLY-TAXED CITY INFRASTRUCTURE WITHOUT DOING AN E.I.R. (Environmental Impact Report)?

DEMAND AN E.I.R. ARE YOU CRAZY.

AND THERE IS NO "STUDY" BEING DONE! PLEASE PRESENT ZUMA DOGG WITH EVIDENCE THAT A STUDY IS IN PROGRESS!!!

So there is your L.A. City Planning Department "Year End Review...2010 Preview. (GET OUTTA TOWN WHILE YOU CAN!) You have a political thug mayor who pushed out the "good" planner (Jane Usher) for this puppet, tool, loser Gail Goldberg who is about to have her whole WORLD come crashing down on her head when she sees the disaster she just created by pushing out all the smart students for the first graders. VILLARAIGOSA NEEDS TO BE YANKED OUT OF OFFICE AND TOSSED INTO PRISON. TRUST ME...WHEN OBAMA HAS TO EMBARRASS HIMSELF AND BAIL OUT LOS ANGELES, JUST OVER A NATIONAL SAFETY ISSUE...JUST LIKE MADOFF...PLACEMENT AGENTS...AND ALL THE OTHER CORRUPTION THAT HAS BEEN EXPOSED THIS YEAR...HEADS ARE GOING TO HAVE TO ROLL...YOU JUST CAN'T DO WHAT YOU JUST DID TO AMERICA'S SECOND BIGGEST CITY AND GET AWAY WITH. BAILOUT DOLLARS WILL DEMAND ANSWERS AND ACCOUNTABILITY...AND HEADS WILL ROLL!

http://ZumaShow.com

GLOBAL STOCK ALERT!!!: Asia Shares Tumble, Gold Rockets to $1028 Sunday Night As Fed Steps In With UNPRECEDENTED Weekend Rate Cut

I was scanning cable TV, when I noticed CNBC cut to the Asia feed Sunday evening. I saw gold was at $1026!!! WHAT!?!? It was at around $1002 when the market closed on Friday.

Well Asia is having a huge sell off with their market down 4% (it's Monday there already) over news that JP Morgan is buying Bear Stearns for only $2.00 a share!

So Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke had to step in with a rare (VERY rare) weekend emergency discount rate cut to 3.25% on the Fed Funds rate. (Couldn't even wait until the regular meeting this Tuesday.

Dow Jones futures are down for Monday morning as of the time of this post.

I had to wake up the WALL STREET WIRE and have it post an emergency alert:

Zuma Dogg spent all December-February warning Wall Street investors about market conditions that lead to today. See StrategyUpdate.com for all the blog posts that called every move before it happened. At the time they were outrageous predictions. Wanna know what will happen next...stick with Zuma Dogg. Maybe I'll post future predictions if I feel like it. And everyone who criticized my predictions can kiss my ass, losers. (Especially the Mega-losers who told me gold hit it's peak at $850, then at $900 they were sure it had peaked...then at $920 it was going back down to $850. Then at $1000 it was too late. But people make these proclamations based on "guesses", not fundamentals. And to those people...I'm sure the market has hit it's bottom and your stock portfolio is going to skyrocket. DO NOT BE FOOLED BY FALLING HOME VALUES, FINANCIAL INSTITUTION CRISIS, OIL AT $110, WEAK DOLLAR, LOWER PAYING JOBS, WHEAT/CORN/SOY BEANS AT RECORD HIGHS...THE MARKET IS GOING TO 14,000!!!

See Friday's Wall Street Alert here.

Los Angeles Mayor Villaraigosa Needs To Do More Address Skyrocketing Rents (But That Would Mean Less Money From Powerful Developers)

David Lazarus wrote an article in LA Times called, "Renters priced out of L.A.". As I read, it reminded me of a lot of things I learned doing research for the article on SCAG (Southern California Association of Government) that ran in LA Weekly (2/14/07).

Here's an excerpt from the article that sets up the "Renters" LA Times piece.

Planning For Disaster
by Zuma Dogg

L.A. has settled into its role as a region filled with lesser-paying jobs and influxes of low-end workers, but housing costs are skyrocketing. Pisano concedes, “You can’t find a condo for under $500,000. The problem is, we need to build an economic base so people can afford to live here. That’s our problem. I don’t disagree that condos and housing are expensive everywhere in the region, not just L.A. If you can’t afford it, you’re gonna be angry.”

Chang Ping, author of SCAG’s annual State of the Region report, used in handing out lumps of coal each winter to the cities and counties SCAG finds most uncooperative, explains, “Manufacturing has gone overseas to China. The world’s financial market is over in New York. Many of the high-quality service jobs are in New York — and those on the West Coast are in San Francisco rather than here — like banking, retail, legal services, engineers, consultants, ad agencies.”

Because Los Angeles allowed the high-end and blue-collar companies to slip away to other cities, its overly expensive housing is now “a barrier to luring in the high-paying jobs provided by such service industries,” Ping says. “Sure, housing costs are higher in San Francisco. But the higher-paying, high-end jobs that were already there — fueled in part by Silicon Valley — have offset the high cost of housing.”

Vasishth slams L.A. City Hall’s shortsighted planning, saying, “You just can’t have the rich living downtown in expensive lofts and the poor people living further and further out.” Cities are going on a “density” kick as some kind of solution — yet there are plenty of skeptics out there.

High-density housing is not a desirable goal for space-loving Southern Californians, Vasishth says, arguing that room to breathe is one of the few pluses still on offer here: “All this new infrastructure, whether it comes from state bonds or from SCAG’s dreamy projections, would simply create more density.” Kotkin is even more dismissive, saying, “Density is a push by big developers to create very expensive housing with some pieces included for the poor — and nothing at all included for the middle class.”

Excerpt from:
Renters priced out of L.A.
by David Lazarus/LA Times
March 9 2008

(It's a) harsh reality for thousands of working-class people priced out of one of the priciest cities in the world. From housing and food to energy and entertainment, Los Angeles is increasingly out of reach for those living paycheck to paycheck.

"It's a crisis," said Gil Duran, a spokesman for Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa. "We have to have a city of mixed incomes with affordable housing for workers."

Easier said than done. But planning and public-policy experts say steps can be taken to protect the city's social and economic diversity. It's just a question of priorities.

Any discussion of getting priced out of L.A. has to begin with housing, by far the biggest expense for most people. Never mind buying. Even with the real estate market on the ropes, buying a house or condo remains a fantasy for the majority of Southern Californians.

The real story here is rentals. About 60% of L.A. residents are renters, according to the National Multi Housing Council, an industry group. That compares with a nationwide average of 32%.

The Department of Housing and Urban Development says families shouldn't spend more than 30% of their annual income on housing. But here, many people pay up to 50% of their income for an apartment.

Runaway housing costs, in turn, tend to push wages higher, which can cause the price of just about everything else to climb as businesses seek to recoup their expenses.

One reason housing prices are so high is a requirement that newly built multiunit dwellings (and condo conversions) provide at least one -- usually two or three -- parking space per unit. This inflates the cost of each apartment and discourages construction of smaller, more affordable units because developers would be required to provide even more parking.

One solution would be to waive the parking requirement for smaller apartments, thus creating an incentive for developers to place more such units on the market. And because there'd be no parking cost built into the rent, such units would (in theory) be cheaper than apartments that come with extra room for vehicles.

This could have the added benefit of increasing demand for public transportation -- presuming, that is, people would trade car ownership for reduced rent. Increased demand would hopefully spur development of commuter-friendly projects like a long-delayed Westside subway line.

But Gail Goldberg, L.A.'s planning director, said any proposal that includes cutbacks in parking tends to go nowhere. "People feel like there's already not enough parking and that people are intruding into their neighborhood. This is a difficult discussion to have."

Meanwhile, a coalition of community, religious and business interests called Housing L.A. is pushing City Hall to require developers to include affordable housing in new projects and to slow the conversion of rental units into condos.

These are worthwhile goals, but they're strongly opposed by deep-pocketed developers and real estate firms. So good luck with that.

full article

Recent LA Daily Blog posts (Summary Page)

zumadogg@gmail.com
david.lazarus@latimes.com