After the excessive coverage of the funeral for Michael Jackson, you would think that his memorial service simply decimated the budget for the city of Los Angeles.

 

“The of Los Angeles, which is $530 million in debt, said that the memorial has cost the city $1.4 million for 1,400 police officers, trash pick-up, sanitation, and traffic control.  The city has set up a webpage asking for donations to help with the expenses. though it keeps crashing.

 

“City Attorney Carmen Trutanich said it would be wrong to expect taxpayers to finance a private event.”  “The city attorney does not want something like this happening again, the city paying for a private event,” spokesman John Franklin told CNN.  “That’s especially in a cash-strapped city, where people have been furloughed or even lost jobs.” (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Jackson_memorial_service)

 

Was it me?  Am I the only person that heard Los Angeles City Councilwoman Jan Perry say (in front of the national news media) “the extra police deployment would be paid from a Los Angeles Police Department fund reserved for overtime costs of special events such as “1st Amendment marches, protests and funerals and other special events large in scope and that have a potential to impact publics safety.”

 

So the question is, who is really to blame for the economic state of the city of Los Angeles versus who is going to be the scapegoat?

Lets look at the the budget message from the Mayor (Antonio R. Villaraigosa), if this is not the scenic route around the truth – I seriously don’t know what is! (see http://mayor.lacity.org/Issues?FiscalManagement/index.htm)

 

This message, if that is what you want to call it, contains the best words and phrases normally played in the game Bullshit Bingo (BB). The rules to BB are as follows, baffle the players with the with meaning less best buzz-words and phrase to gain an advantage over an individuals thought process.  Guaranteed BB phrases are:

1.  Extraordinary circumstances demand a fresh approach

2.  Shared responsibility and Shared sacrifice

3.  Laying the ground work for tomorrow

4.  Take an unpaid vacation day

5.  Focus, collaboration, creativity and sacrifice

The fact of the matter, it all boils down to one word – MISMANAGEMENT.

 

Budget deficits do not occur over night.  Rising unemployment, the high foreclosure rate and the credit crisis did not “just happen” to Los Angeles.  Not holding the collective behinds of city and state politicians to the fire, is the why the current predicament exists.  Contrary to popular belief, there is an Office of Budget and Management in the city of Los Angeles, and their purpose should be to take data, and convert it into usable information for city planning.  That data/analysis could have been able to predict, within a degree certainty, what the economic outcome were going to be, given the current situation of the city and the state.  And yet, the performance of that due diligence function obviously did not happen. 

 

Michael Jackson’s death amounts to .0026% percent of the city of Los Angeles budget – so, lay the blame where its deserved.

Have you read a newspaper, magazine, blog and thought that the information provided was just utter nonsense.  I have, and this blog-spot is dedicated to dispelling some of the insanity that is offered to the public on a daily basis.

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