LA Weekly Proves That Antonio Villaraigoza Is The "All-About-Me" Mayor
Posted by: Kevin D. Korenthal | 09/11/2008 11:59 AM
The decidedly liberal rag, LA Weekly has published one of the most scathing indictments of a Democrat politician that I have ever read coming from a mainstream media org.
Here is just a sample of the 7 pages of criticisms that the LA Weekly launches at Villaraigoza.
The article goes onto explain that Villaraigoza, despite his 2005 campaign in which he said he would fight for a greener LA and would answer to the people has instead overseen the largest glut of new construction (without an emphasis on green technology) and is subsidized by Big Labor in a way that his predecessors could only have dreamed about.
This is a must read!
Here is just a sample of the 7 pages of criticisms that the LA Weekly launches at Villaraigoza.
After getting briefed for a carefully staged press conference scheduled the following day, at which Villaraigosa would urge L.A. residents to back a big boost in the Los Angeles County sales tax, he prepared for a special meeting at the posh mayoral mansion, Getty House, that was of pressing importance: posing for a statue of himself for Madame Tussaud's Wax Museum.
At the hourlong "sitting," Villaraigosa offered the Tussaud's creative team the quiet privacy of his official residence, on the leafy border of Hancock Park and Windsor Square on Irving Boulevard. Three artists had flown in from London, meeting him at Getty House with boxes of fake eyeballs, hair samples and tooth samples.
Inside the historic mansion, they placed Villaraigosa on a stool atop a giant turntable and went to work, twisting him back and forth as they snapped photographs, took measurements and matched their anatomy samples to their real-life subject.
"He was approached," says Jack Holland, an external-relations representative for Madame Tussaud's, "and he was very gracious to cooperate."
At a minimum cost of $200,000 per wax statue, the team needed to be thorough and precise, especially since the mayor is all set to become one of 80 celebrities featured at the new Madame Tussaud's, opening on Hollywood Boulevard next spring -- further fulfillment of the fame Villaraigosa avidly pursues.
Holland says the wax-sculpting team not only makes an exact copy of its subject but "is also able to discern the character and personality of a person, which makes our creations so lifelike."
It's unknown what the team learned about Villaraigosa's character or personality. But the fact that the mayor so eagerly posed for a tribute to himself offered some telling clues.
The article goes onto explain that Villaraigoza, despite his 2005 campaign in which he said he would fight for a greener LA and would answer to the people has instead overseen the largest glut of new construction (without an emphasis on green technology) and is subsidized by Big Labor in a way that his predecessors could only have dreamed about.
This is a must read!
Allen Wilson is exactly the kind of person who would like another Bush term. I applaud the SGV...
Thank you Kevin K for the article. OK, I live in Santa Clarita and Mayor Anthony Villaraigosa is not my mayor, but he is for City of Los Angeles.
Wake up City of LA citizens! Did you see this article yet?? It's long, and I only skimmed the first 4pages.
question: If he's gotten divorced, shouldn't his name now be Anthony Villar (his "maiden" name) ?
excerpts:
Los Angeles' mayor has not yet produced any results in improving schools, addressing greatly worsening traffic, keeping kids from joining gangs, cleaning the city's infamously filthy sidewalks, halting patently illegal clutter like 10-story building ads and thousands of illicitly constructed billboards, or controlling his spending in a time of family belt-tightening. Since May of 2007, when a negative profile in The New Yorker, citing his "single-minded ambition" and "drive for self-aggrandizement," shattered his press honeymoon and made his local media coverage look parochial and protective, Villaraigosa has been slammed for wrecking his marriage and has backed the wrong horse for president.
Time has become his defensive tool, and the mayor continually touts his rushing, 16-to-18-hour workday in speeches and media interviews to anyone who questions his commitment.
"No mayor has been out of town like Antonio, not in my time in Los Angeles," says former Daily News editor Ron Kaye, who organized the Save L.A. Project rally in mid-July at City Hall. "And part of his game is to be buried in nonsense. ... He needs to get to work!"
Kaye's and Villaraigosa's definitions of "work" differ greatly. The mayor's schedule — which was provided to the Weekly with fat chunks blacked out, despite his 2005 campaign vow to establish a new kind of "transparent" administration — clearly shows a man who's infinitely more preoccupied with his career and his press coverage than with shaking up the ossified City Hall bureaucracy or fighting threats to the quality of life in L.A.
In fact, out of 15 hours and 30 minutes of scheduled work for Wednesday, June 25 — a day that ran seamlessly into dozens of other, similar days this summer — the mayor spent 50 minutes on real city business. He was on the go, but it wasn't about running Los Angeles.
His actual city work that day included a 20-minute briefing on an upcoming Metro board meeting, one he must attend as a member of Metro's voting board, which oversees the roughly $3 billion annual spending on MTA buses, rail and other regional transit. His other city work on June 25 included taking an "urgent" 30-minute phone call from his chief of staff, Robin Kramer, of unknown content.
His partially blacked-out trips to Israel, Miami, Hawaii, London, New York City, Chicago, Oakland, San Diego, Washington, D.C., and San Francisco soaked up 310 hours, or 34 percent of his workload. Among those hours, he held fund-raising events in four other cities to raise cash for his 2009 mayoral bid, and took a red-eye flight on July 7 to Washington, D.C., to introduce Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama at the League of United Latin American Citizens' annual convention. His other heavily blacked-out events, which the Weekly has learned include 14 fund-raisers, accounted for 186 hours, or 21 percent of his workload.
Together, then, the mayor spent 804 hours, or 89 percent of his work schedule, on ceremonial/PR, travel, blacked-out activities, gap time, fund-raising, personal issues and undisclosed "security" issues. On direct city business — such as signing legislation and meeting with city-department heads — his schedule shows the mayor spent 11 percent of his time.
"The mayor flies around the world like he's on a reality TV show," says a former California Democratic congressional staffer, who, like many other insiders, is afraid to be quoted because of the mayor's practice of cutting out those who criticize him. He says that in contrast to the mayor, the 18 Congress members representing Los Angeles County typically spend 70 to 80 percent of their time on "hardcore" governing: talking with stakeholders, attending policy meetings, crafting legislation, holding public hearings and boning up on issues and studies, among other things.
Mayor Villaraigoza continues to misuse this name.
His real name is Villal. He added "Raigoza" to "Villal."
His ex now wants him to return her name and return to his old name, "Villal."
Community property provides for this, does it not?