I agree. But who else can do the work required? Not to say V *can*–but we have to find some other workable solution, then.

What we need is someone who cares more about the city than their own political ambitions… which, pretty much rules out anyone in politics.

No kidding some real solutions are needed. What happens to LA unfortunately drags down the entire area. No matter how you try to make those transit ant hills villages/destinations work they won’t until you really have mass transit that works. AV failed us all miserably with that one, and that is just a start.

I’m not particularly a fan of the Mayor, but it’s kind of unfair to blame downtown’s real estate downturn on him. The downtown condo values have plummeted 35% because (1) they weren’t all sold in the first place, and (2) hundreds of units flooded the market at a time when real estate prices nationwide were plummeting. None of that was the mayor’s fault.

Probably the most successful thing he’s done is to convince the voters to get Prop R passed, which (surprise!) was a politicking job.

Like I said in my post last week, turnout in these elections is so EMBARRASSINGLY low that NO KIDDING a couple hundred votes can swing the whole thing.

So get your shit together – take an hour – look at who else is running, and PICK ONE.

Vote. Whoever we get can’t be worse than Mayor “I’m there for you a full 11% of the time, and most of that’s for a photo op” Antonio V!

The revolution starts now! We have to get enough people out to vote on Tuesday (for anyone but AV) so there is, at the very least, a run-off so he will have to answer to his constituents.
He has been a dismal failure for the city of Los Angeles on so many levels. The 11% mayor indeed. Can you imagine what percentage of his attention our city will get when he starts actively campaigning to be Governor? Ugh.

I’d love to hear someone give just one legitimate reason as to why Walter Moore is not a viable alternative to Villardonothing ….without using the terms, racist, xenophobe or anti-immigrant.

I keep hearing everyone complain about how bad our city is being run and yet here we have multiple candidates running – ones who are completely and totally unattached to the corporate political machine – and yet you still whine that they’re too inexperienced, weird, racist, blah, blah, blah.

Honestly, this city deserves Villardonothing because he mirrors its apathy.

Wait, why isn’t anti-immigrant a legitimate reason to his lack of viability?

This article is GREAT! I’m so glad that ole Grandpa Joel has a vision for Los Angeles. Wow. He really is smart – we should all movie to marina Del Rey and avoid public transit and buy houses in the suburbs. What Los Angeles needs is a visionary like Joel to push the agenda of 1940′s post-war Los Angeles. Traffic-shmafic! I personally do not care for the mayor but what REALLY irks me is that this stodgy old fool keeps getting paid to write. So glad that the world of Los Angeles as represented by someone who sits home by a Marina and writes all day is what the East Coast Forbes readers will be forming their opinions from. Should free up some of that money I’m sure Kotkin feels we don’t deserve. After all, Los Angeles looks great from his window. Out of a highrise. Over the MARINA.

Moore isn’t just anti-immigrant, he’s anti-Mexican. What a ludicrous position to take in a city like Los Angeles. He’s against the majority of the population.

All of those real estate deals can be traced back directly to Trick Dick (Richard Riodan, for those who don’t know his nickname,) so Villaraigosa being blamed for that is pretty laughable to anyone who has been here more than a second.

And yeah being a racist in a city that’s 70% of color is sort of big freakin deal. Yeah and while Walter is on about Latinos right now I bet in the 90s he was on about African-Americans, maybe I should do some google research and see. I mean really Ugly American do you think someone who is part of the Nation of Islam would have a chance (even with the so-called other good stuff they might have in regards to all the other stuff) in Newport Beach? I’m going to think, no. And I think a person not liking you just because is a pretty legit reason to not think they are ok.

Browne

So now Moore secretly hates blacks too.

In other words, you have no argument other than Walter Moore is a racist, which you base solely on the fact that he wants to repeal Special Order 40 and our designate as a sanctuary city.

With that kind of logic, we should label the entire L.A. basin racist for allowing a mountain peak to remain named “Negrohead” for so long.

Between both Villaraigosa and Moore, one has actually belonged to a racist, separatist organization while the other has not.

The entire racist meme towards white political candidates has gotten not only tiresome and lame but in the case of Walter Moore, is also completely unjustified.

Give it a rest.

Negrohead just petitioned to have its name changed today.

Well, the mountain didn’t petition, but the people did.

I wasn’t impressed when he was elected and he’s been a constant failure since. Enough- time to move on.

“In other words, you have no argument other than Walter Moore is a racist, which you base solely on the fact that he wants to repeal Special Order 40 and our designate as a sanctuary city.” theuglyamerican

I know about that stupid law and I know that he is using the whole black kid thing as a cover to say, “see it’s not about race, its about safety…” I’m not an idiot and that law and that plastering of that kid everywhere, as well as Walter’s minions popping up in the black blogosphere spreading his hateful shit makes me dislike him even more. Everytime I post something on a more Latino centric blog I get one of his minions asking what I think about this law. It is highly annoying, like I give a flying f*ck what some a**hole racist thinks, just because for today I’m not the target of his hateful crap.

I mean I guess his minions think I’m a racist jerk like them. I don’t care if something is not directed towards me. It’s not about me, it’s about everyone.

If you think Mecha is a separtist movement, I think you are a little misguided and don’t understand college life. MeCha is just a student organization that Latinos join in college. It’s like the black student union or the asian student union or the women’s united group, the gay/lesbian alliance or whatever….

And anyway in college I remember people from MeCha being nice to me and inviting me to parties. I’m not Chicana, so if it’s a separtist, racist group they forgot to tell me, but I remember who actively didnt like oddly they didn’t fit into one racial demographic.

And pretty much any person who was Asian, Afican-American, biracial, gay, lesbian, Chicano, Native American, a woman…probably belonged to (or at least went to a couple of meetings) a “separtist” group at some point during college if they went to school anytime between 1970-2000, so if people want to keep pulling out that card then pretty much no one, but straight white men are going to be able to run for any kind of office.

And no this has nothing to do with Walter being racist, because he’s white, it has to do with him being racist, because he pretty much says he is. Are we actually debating this? He feels that owing to the fact that some people are born one thing and other people are born something else that one group has more rights than the others, that’s a clear cut definition of what racism is. That’s not even just a little prejudice, that goes straight to racist. He’s creepy and weird and definitely not what we need in LA right now.

Browne

Lucinda,

Here’s a story on how Negrohead Mountain became Negrohead.

So here’s the story: During the 1850s Kentucky-born AFrican-American John Ballard moved to Agoura in the Santa Monica Mountains and set up house and trade. He and his family joined the 60 other black residents of Los Angeles County which, then, only had a population of 4000. Without question Ballard was a L.A. pioneer. He survived the spiritually and physically challenging institution of slavery, traveled across the country by wagon, purchased land overlooking Malibu, founded the town’s first African Methodist Episcopal church, and made a few coins blacksmithing and selling lumber.

The story continues: The arrival of the railroad upped property values and newly-arriving white settlers wanted Ballard and his family out. They burned his house and harrassed him day and night until he finally moved 50 miles away and purchased 300-plus acres. The new settlers named the area N*gger-head Mountain in his honor [or in honor of their racist victory]. And N*gger-head is what appears on all government documents. But in the 1960s some embarrased [or progressive] official decided Negro-head would be a bit more appropriate…

http://theroot.com/blogs/dig/negro-head-mountain-gets-name-change

Browne