You know how you think Villaraigosa is some kind of "visionary," and how he now calls himself the "transportation Mayor?" Well, he has some 'splainin' to do, because, per the Los Angeles Times, Obama's Federal Transportation Administration chief, Peter Rogoff, made some "disturbing findings" about the civil rights implications of massive cutbacks in bus service here:
Those include Metro's failure to conduct the proper analyses when implementing service changes over the last several years. In the letter, Rogoff chides Metro officials, saying they "should be well familiar with the requirements" because of many years of litigation and a previous consent decree over civil rights issues.
"These findings now require me to formally find [Metro] not compliant with FTA [civil rights] requirements," Rogoff wrote.How are poor people supposed to get around in L.A. without bus service? After all, the Subway to the VA -- formerly known as the "Subway to the Sea" -- isn't ready yet.
And by the way, Debbie, before he called himself the "transportation mayor," he also called himself the "green mayor," the "jobs mayor," the "million trees" mayor, and so on. By contrast, the LA Weekly, which is the local progressive paper, calls him the "11% mayor" and the "all about me" mayor.
You might want to look into that and un-invite him to host your convention. You can just say he let you know he was too busy to do it -- too busy explaining to the federal government why he's mean to the poor.
P.S. Ask him why he waited until August 2011 to propose the "bus only" lanes that I proposed during my campaign back in 2008. To get traffic moving, all we need to do is build parking structures along major streets, and then stop using the streets as parking lots. That's two extra lanes per street, all day and all night, for the fraction of the cost of a few miles of subway.
Well, since we're on the subject of civil rights. Let's ask LA Weekly or the LA Times to investigate if there is any truth to the fact, that when Villaraigosa was councilman of council district 14, he instructed LA Housing Department to pull their code enforcement inspectors out of CD 14, so as not to cite property owners who illegally converted garages into makeshift dwelling units, which put tenants in a high-risk situation. And then, using the excuse, that this was a way of life for them.
ReplyDeleteIs this a violation of their civil rights?
Heck! What do I know?