California's Democratic politicians: The logjam cracks, soon to break!

Sen. Dianne Feinstein, Sen. Barbara Boxer and Rep. Henry A. Waxman (EPA, Associated Press, Getty Images)

By Cathleen Decker

February 3, 2014

The rush of interest by local politicos and would be politicos to succeed veteran Congressman Henry Waxman underscored an odd truth about California politics: in a state that prides itself on chasing the next snazzy new thing, most of its high-ranking elected officials are anything but California’s two U.S. senators have each served for 21 years. Its governor is seeking a record fourth term in office.

The state is increasingly young and Latino, but its most prominent political officials aren’t: Dianne Feinstein is 80, Jerry Brown is 75 and Barbara Boxer is 73. Their presence at the top of the ticket has effectively blocked a generation of Democrats from moving up, not that any of them is impolitic enough to say so publicly.

The Waxman seat is an example of the benefits and frustrations that longevity can simultaneously produce.
Waxman, 74, was a prodigious legislator, a man whose accomplishments inspired reverence from Democrats and praise even from some Republicans. His legislative heft resulted in no small part from his long tenure in office, which allowed him to pursue goals over an extended period with the benefit of relationships built over time.

And still, ambitious Westside pols might have muttered: 40 years we had to wait?

Not all of those who want to elbow aside the veterans are as well equipped to serve, and the veterans understandably bridle at the notion that after achieving the political heights they should just stand down unilaterally.

That, they argue, is unfair to them personally and to the state’s interests, not to mention ageist.
House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi, the former House speaker who is now 73, grew angry last year when the subject of age was raised during a news conference by a reporter young enough to be her grandson.

"Some of your colleagues privately say that your decision to stay on (as House minority leader) prohibits the party from having a younger leadership and hurts the party in the long term," said the reporter, NBC’s Luke Russert. "What's your response?"
As Pelosi sought to move to the next question, some of her colleagues shouted “Boo!” and “age discrimination!”

"Let's for a moment honor it as a legitimate question, although it's quite offensive," Pelosi said eventually. "You don't realize that, I guess."
As to the meat of his question — whether the ages of the leaders hurt Democrats — Pelosi said "the answer is no."

The issue rarely arises overtly in campaigns, as much as anything out of fear that older voters — among the most dependable balloteers — will exact revenge. Still, the worry is there. Not for nothing did Jerry Brown in 2010 challenge reporters and practically anyone else who'd listen to tests of physical strength and note that, with his forebearers extending into their 90s, age was relative.

(His most famous challenge was made to New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie last September after the Republican called him “an old retread.”

(“I’m old. I’m 74. I’ll be 74 and a half next month. But here I am. You know, there is some experience. Hopefully there’s some wisdom,” Brown recounted on CNN. He asked Christie to take part in a three-mile race, and “try some chin-ups maybe, and some push-ups,’” Brown said. “This old retread can beat you any day of the week.” )

The real question for Democratic leaders is not physical dominance but something more difficult to quantify: political relevance.

Feinstein and Boxer remain popular political figures in the state, not least because of their historic status as the first one-two female Senate team in a state where women are well more than half of the voters. For most women, to be sure, policy positions and gender matter more than age. And elections are, in any case, the simplest way of figuring out what is most relevant to voters. Feinstein has been elected statewide five times; Boxer four.

But at the least, the state’s dominant Democratic Party has a yawning gulf between what it is and who leads it.

A study by the Public Policy Institute of California last year found that 51% of Democrats were nonwhite. And 58% were age 54 and under. Not incidentally, only 26% were from the Bay Area, from which Brown, Feinstein, Boxer, Pelosi and state Democratic Chairman John Burton, age 81, spring.

Behind those stalwarts, the number of high-ranking statewide candidates in, say, their 50s and 60s, has shrunk. Former Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, 61, is seen as the most obvious member of that thwarted generation. And behind him, a new generation is rising: among prominent Democrats in their 40s are the 49-year-old Atty. Gen. Kamala Harris, the 46-year-old Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsom and the 42-year-old mayor of Los Angeles, Eric Garcetti. (Few if any Republicans are well known statewide due to California’s blue hue: Rep. Kevin McCarthy of Bakersfield is the third-ranking GOP leader in Congress but mostly unknown outside his interior base.)

Garry South, who has run four governor’s races, including an abridged effort by Newsom that fell to Brown’s 2010 resurrection, said that Democrats have long talked quietly about the party gridlock, while at the same time expressing allegiance to the Democratic veterans.

“If you look at California as a whole and look at the Democratic Party here, the torch hasn’t really been passed to a new generation,” he said, co-opting the slogan that John F. Kennedy used in 1960 to dispatch his elders.

As South pointed out, though, the gridlock may soon give way. Boxer is up for election in 2016, and has not publicly said whether she will seek another term. Feinstein is up in 2018, ditto. Besides their personal desires, the decisions by both may rest on whether Republicans gain control of the Senate in November, which would cost them key committee posts and influence.

Brown would be termed out of office in 2018 were he to win reelection (and an unlikely defeat of the popular governor would open the doors to Democratic competitors then anyway.)

Those races, along with the state’s top two rules, by which the top finishers move on to the general election even if they are of the same party, would give Democrats more high-profile slots than they have seen in a generation. Two Democrats of relatively equal strength could compete against one another for the governorship in November, for example, rather than voters choosing from the traditional Democrat versus Republican framing.

“The bad news is that these seats are basically monopolized by people in their 70s and 80s,” South said. “The good news is by the time we get to 2018, it’s going to be a whole new political world.”

cathleen.decker@latimes.com
Twitter: @cathleendecker

Narbonne High teacher stopped this run at a football prospect

When soon-to-be USC coach Steve Sarkisian visited Veronica Bennett's class to check on a star student, she made the right play.

Veronica Bennett is shown in her classroom at Narbonne High School. When future USC football coach Steve Sarkisian tried to talk to a star student in her honors class, she turned him away. The young man was a student first, she informed Sarkisian, and he was busy studying. The football talk could wait. (Luis Sinco)

Los Angeles Times

By Steve Lopez

Last week, a neat little nugget was tucked into the bottom of a story about USC's new head football coach, Steve Sarkisian.

The piece by Eric Sondheimer — the local treasure who covers prep sports for The Times — noted that Sarkisian had dropped by Narbonne High School in Harbor City last month to check on a star football player. Sarkisian got as far as the athlete's classroom door, but in the equivalent of a great goal-line stand, the teacher turned him away.

The young man was a student first, and he happened to be studying U.S. government with the rest of his honors class, the teacher informed the coach. She didn't appreciate the interruption.

I knew the moment I read this that I had to meet such a stand-up teacher, so on Thursday I drove down to Narbonne. As I entered the office, four well-dressed, exceedingly polite sophomores appeared. They told me they were members of the school's Public Service Academy and were running an errand for their teacher.

Two of them told me they're going to be lawyers, and the other two want to be a firefighter and a police officer.

Somebody was clearly doing something right at this school. Principal Gerald Kobata attributed the school's atmosphere to a lot of good students and good teachers, too. And as we talked, one of those teachers suddenly appeared.

Veronica Bennett, the best defender Steve Sarkisian ever met, has a big voice and robust personality, but she was uncomfortably shy about my visit. She's no different from most teachers, she told me. And she was just doing her job.

Teaching, it turns out, is not Bennett's first career. The Bay Area native worked in sales for a dental lab and then became a benefits administrator for a chemical company. But it wasn't fulfilling work, so when a friend suggested she was good with kids and should consider teaching, she went back to school at age 42 to earn a credential.

"My thought … was that I would keep going until a door closed," said Bennett. "But the doors kept flying open."

She started teaching at Narbonne in 1996, and has never regretted her midlife career switch, despite the challenges. Many of her students are dealing with poverty, neighborhood crime and peer pressure.

"But when you get with them one-on-one," Bennett said, "they all want to succeed."
It was early November when Sarkisian visited Narbonne. He was head coach at the University of Washington at the time and wanted to lure Narbonne defensive back Uchenna Nwosu up to Seattle.

Ironically, Nwosu wasn't interested. He'd already committed to USC.
"It was third period," Bennett said. "So during the course of our lesson, I get a school aide who comes and says the student needs to go to the athletics office. And I said no, we're right in the middle of class."

Bennett has a way of making that single word — no — into a lecture. It's all about tone, attitude, body language.

Maintaining the focus of her third-period students can be tricky, she said, so she doesn't like distractions.
"They're nice kids, don't get me wrong," she said. "But they're very social."

Moments after the first aide was turned away, another one appeared.
Same request.
Same reply.

Even my temperature was rising as Bennett related the story.
"So she leaves, and five minutes later I get a counselor coming in. By that point I'm pretty steamed," said Bennett, who told me her students "were now bouncing off the walls."

She sent the counselor packing.
Moments later, another knock.

"This is the fourth interruption and I can't get anything done. So I go to the door and here's our football coach and Sarkisian," said Bennett, who was once the athletic director at Narbonne. She said she told Sarkisian she knew him from his days as a star athlete in the South Bay.

"I said, 'Hi, coach, I'm Victoria Bennett, you went to West Torrance High.' He said yes, and I didn't give him a chance to say anything else because I was hot. I said, 'I'm sure you will understand I've had most of these youngsters for two years and my goal is to get them across the stage."

If her students play football, fine, Bennett told me. If they get a full college scholarship, yahoo!
"But academics is my No. 1," she recalls telling the coaches in what she describes as a deliberate but respectful tone. "This is what I do. This is it."

She suggested that even a big-deal college coach like Sarkisian could wait until after class to conduct his business.

"I said, 'I am not enamored of celebrity.'"
With that, Bennett went back and taught her class, and Sarkisian waited until later to visit Nwosu.

"She's a very good teacher," said Principal Kobata. "She holds them accountable. When you go into her class, you see student engagement.... They don't just sit passively."
Kobata said he was upset with his staff for interrupting Bennett's class. The policy is for recruiters to visit after school.

And what about Nwosu, who, as it turns out, will have plenty of time with Sarkisian at USC next year?
"I appreciated what she was doing," the student said of the way Bennett put his education first.

Nwosu said his grade-point average is above 3.0 and he might major in business at USC.
Bennett, he said, is "a cool teacher. Cool and funny."
"I love that class."

steve.lopez@latimes.com

What would Reagan do? Immigration reform is the most Republican of causes.

 

By Frank Keating

November 11, 2013

LA TImes

 

Like many Republicans — what's more, like many Americans — I regard Ronald Reagan as my political hero and inspiration. For conservatives who came of age in the 1960s and '70s, President Reagan offered a principled and compassionate argument for individual freedom and an equally compelling case for personal responsibility.

In 1989, Reagan described his view of America "as a tall, proud city built on rocks stronger than oceans, wind-swept, God-blessed and teeming with people of all kinds living in harmony and peace; a city with free ports that hummed with commerce and creativity. And if there had to be city walls, the walls had doors and the doors were open to anyone with the will and the heart to get here."

Unfortunately, too many conservatives — though they aspire to walk in Reagan's footsteps — have forgotten that immigration reform is the most Republican of causes. We cannot support open borders for trade but not for people. We cannot support the unfettered exchange of goods and ideas while building razor-wired walls that separate children from their parents. We cannot make America stronger and more prosperous by excluding tomorrow's talent and industry.

From my perspective as a Reagan Republican — indeed, as a senior official in the Reagan administration during the last major immigration reform process — I am convinced that we stand on the precipice of opportunity.

In numbers that we haven't seen since the early 20th century, immigrants have been coming here to work and to build a better future for their families. Just as immigrants helped fuel the engine of America's emerging industrial economy 100 years ago, today they are filling two critical job gaps: high-skilled professions in science, technology and advanced manufacturing, and low-skill service and industrial jobs in fast-growing regions. We need immigrants of all skill levels to help build the 21st century economy.

Offering opportunities to new Americans doesn't take jobs from citizens. The economy is not zero-sum. It's dynamic, and bringing new talent to American jobs will enlarge the economy for everyone. In June, a Congressional Budget Office report estimated that the Senate's bipartisan immigration reform bill would boost economic growth by 5.4% after 20 years and reduce the deficit by $900 billion over that period.
Immigration would also help address a critical long-term gap in funding for America's two signature entitlement programs: Social Security and Medicare.

In 1950, there were about 16 workers for every retiree. Today, there are only about three. But according to Social Security's chief actuary, immigrants, who tend to come to the United States at the start of their careers, would enrich the Social Security trust fund by $500 billion over the next 25 years, and by an impressive $4 trillion by the end of the century. That's a game-changer.

These numbers underscore an important point. Immigrants are coming here to work, not to become dependent on the state. People don't make perilous journeys and risk their life savings and sometimes their lives for the goal of getting a welfare check, a food-stamp card or a housing voucher. And welfare reform has made America even less attractive for those who would go on the dole.

But the considerable economic benefits aren't the main reason we should reform immigration. America was the world's first nation to be based on principles, not ethnicity. Citizenship is at once narrow and broad — available to those who share our principles, regardless of race or national origin. It is unconscionable to leave a class of neighbors who share our values in perpetual second-class status.

The promise of citizenship has always drawn pioneers who have made America the strong country it is today. Immigration reform fulfills the promise of the American dream for new generations who will make our country even stronger.

The Senate bill also protects the rule of law by securing the border and ensuring that only law-abiding immigrants receive legal status. Border security is the indispensable lintel that shoulders the load. Without it, the entire structure would be in jeopardy. President Obama can help calm concerns by pledging not to use delays or waivers to weaken the bill.

Future Americans with will, resolve and heart are waiting. As Ronald Reagan might have put it, it's time to open the doors.

Frank Keating, a former Republican governor of Oklahoma, is president and chief executive of the American Bankers Assn.

Copyright © 2013, Los Angeles Times

Calderon allegedly took bribes for pushing film bills, Al Jazeera reports

State Sen. Ron Calderon (D-Montebello), right, listens to a question from a reporter at the end of his brief news conference at the Capitol in June. (Rich Pedroncelli / AP / June 10, 2013)

 

LA Times

By Patrick McGreevy and Anthony York

SACRAMENTO -- State Sen. Ronald Calderon allegedly accepted more than $60,000 in bribes from  undercover FBI agents during an elaborate sting operation, according to a report by the Al Jazeera television network, which cited a sealed federal affidavit.

The bribes were paid in exchange for Calderon seeking a change in tax credits available to the film industry and for hiring on the state payroll a woman purported to be the undercover agent's girlfriend, but who was herself an undercover agent, according to the affidavit, which the television network released.

The document, filed in support of a search warrant served in June of Calderon’s Capitol office, said the agent believed Calderon had also engaged in conspiracy, mail fraud and extortion under color of official authority, and indicated that wiretaps were used to collect evidence.

Calderon has not been charged with any crime.

“There is probable cause to believe that Ronald Calderon, a California state senator, has committed the subject offenses by accepting approximately $60,000 in bribes from an undercover FBI agent," ('the UC') the affidavit says, “in exchange for (1) directly enriching the UC’s business by supporting legislation in the California Senate that would lower the amount of money independent filmmakers have to spend on a film’s budget in order to qualify for a California tax credit and (2) indirectly enriching the UC by hiring the UC’s purported girlfriend, UC-2, to a Senate staff position funded by the state of California.”

The affidavit says there is also probable cause to believe that Calderon “participated in a separate bribery scheme with Michael D. Drobot,” the chief executive officer of the Pacific Hospital of Long Beach, accepting $28,000 in bribes from Drobot in exchange for “supporting legislation that would delay or limit changes in California’s workers compensation laws….”

The document said a $25,000 bribe paid by the undercover agent to Ronald Calderon went through Californians for Diversity, a nonprofit formed by his brother, former Assemblyman Tom Calderon in 2008.
Ron Calderon told investigators that he and Tom Calderon “intend to use that money when Ronald Calderon is no longer in public office.”

The bribes, which began in Februry 2012, were from an undercover agent “posing as owner of a film studio in downtown Los Angeles that provides studio facilities to independent films and commercials,” the affidavit says.

The agent also made nine $3,000 payments to Ronald Calderon’s daughter, Jessica Calderon, who “has received these payments even though she has never done any work for the” undercover agent.
Mark Geragos, an attorney for Ronald Calderon, challenged the television report.

“The only illegal act that is being committed is either by the government or by Al Jazeera,” Geragos said. “The only illegal act I see is commited either by somebody who released a sealed affidavit or somebody who claims they got a sealed affidavit. Releasing a sealed affidavit is a federal crime.”

Asked about the allegations in the report: “My guess is, it is fabricated and untrue.”

Keys to a California GOP comeback: camaraderie and good ideas

California State Capital in Sacramento

By George Skelton Capitol Journal

Paul Priolo remembers the last time Democrats enjoyed a supermajority in the state Assembly. He was the Republican leader. And his strategy was simple.

"I socialized with Democrats," he says. "That was my key to getting along and overcoming the handicap of their having a supermajority…. They were the leaders and the ones you tried to get next to.
"We'd fight during the day and go out to dinner together at night. But that's a thing of the past."
 

Yes, that's largely history. Thanks in part to then-Gov. Jerry Brown's post-Watergate political reform that ended the practice of lobbyists picking up the meal and bar tabs of legislators.
Today, instead of buying $20 dinners for lawmakers as they used to, special interests kick in $2,000 campaign donations at their cracker-and-cheese fundraisers.

But a bigger reason for the nighttime lifestyle change — in Sacramento as elsewhere — was the crackdown on drunk driving.

Increased partisanship and polarization also are at fault. Democratic and Republican legislators just don't hang as they used to.

"I got along quite well with Jerry, as a matter of fact," Priolo says. "He was part of our dinner group. We used to gather once a week for a crab feed and Jerry would come quite often. Course, he was uninvited. He just showed up and dominated the conversation. We tolerated him. After all, he was the governor."
A new Legislature will be sworn in Monday, and for the first time since the 1975-79 era, the Assembly will be controlled by an ironclad two-thirds Democratic majority.

In fact, for the first time in 80 years both houses will be dominated by supermajorities, enough heft for Democrats to pass any legislation without Republican support.

It'll be one-party control of the Capitol with Democrat Brown again ensconced in the governor's office. In the '30s, it was Republicans who wielded that kind of muscle. Democrats haven't since 1883.
Allan Hoffenblum, publisher of the California Target Book that handicaps legislative races, was a Republican political staffer when the GOP held only 23 of 80 Assembly seats in the 1970s. (Now they'll have 25 or 26, depending on a final vote tally, with just 11 of 40 seats projected in the Senate.)

"I remember someone calling a Republican caucus and when all the Republicans got up from their seats on the floor and went to the meeting, you couldn't tell anybody had left the Assembly," Hoffenblum says.
I called Priolo, who's 85, living in Sonoma and no longer a Republican. "Newt Gingrich was the final straw." He's now registered as nonpartisan.

In the '70s, Priolo was a moderate Republican assemblyman from Santa Monica. The Assembly GOP did seem relevant back then, regardless of feeble numbers. I asked Priolo whether he had any advice for the new superminority.

"Stop stonewalling on everything — being against everything," he answered. "Find out where you can work together" with Democrats. "You've got to sit down and B.S. and find some common ground.
"Personal relationships can go a long way. Course, that might have been my undoing too."

When the governor and Legislature failed to deliver property tax relief, voters in 1978 passed an initiative, Proposition 13, and ignited a nationwide anti-tax rebellion. Several conservative Republicans — called "Prop. 13 babies" — were elected to the Assembly and dumped Priolo as leader.

"They didn't like the idea that I did any kind of business with Democrats," he says.
Legislative camaraderie has been crumbling ever since.

 Republicans did crawl back. By 1994, they were strong enough to secure a bare-minimum, 41-vote Assembly majority. But because of Machiavellian maneuvering by Democratic Speaker Willie Brown of San Francisco, it took Republicans one year to fully gain control of the house. And Democrats seized it again in 1996.

Then-Assembly Republican Leader Jim Brulte of Rancho Cucamonga plotted the brief GOP takeover and later became Senate minority leader. Currently he's being recruited by business leaders and party pragmatists to take over the pathetic state GOP.

I asked him what advice he'd give the few remaining Republican lawmakers."A good idea is a good idea regardless of how many Republicans are supporting it. If it's really a good idea, the Democrats will steal it and put their name on it. But the Republicans' goal should be to get good public policy enacted."

They can claim partial credit.The current Republican leaders don't seem to have a precise strategy.
"We will make the best of a bad situation," Senate GOP Leader Bob Huff of Diamond Bar says. "It's uncharted territory."

"Education is ripe for reform," he adds. "And we'd like to get some traction with the majority party on regulatory reform."

Assembly Republican Leader Connie Conway of Tulare wants to rebrand the GOP. Voters have been hearing an inaccurate message, she asserts."This whole national tenor about Republicans being anti-women," Conway continues. "I don't know where that comes from. It's certainly not my message."

Dan Schnur, a former communications strategist for Republican Gov. Pete Wilson and current director of the Jesse M. Unruh Institute of Politics at USC, says, "Republicans will wait for Democrats to overreach and then call them on it. But they've tried it that way and it hasn't worked out all that well.

"No legislator is sent to Sacramento to point fingers at the other side. Getting something done is better than simply criticizing."
Republicans are weak, but they're not immobile. They can start the long climb back. They can beat Democrats to the punch on practical ideas.

george.skelton@latimes.com

Please, newsmakers, he doesn't need this strain

This is a great piece written by Los Angeles staff writer Steve Lopez:

LA Times article (CLICK HERE)

Columnist finds it's tough to keep his blood pressure under control when he reads about Bell's ex-police chief, lifeguard firings in El Monte, the mayor's reaction to the AEG sale — and bad sidewalks.

 

L.A. Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa said he knew AEG was up for sale, but kept the information to himself. (Irfan Khan, Los Angeles Times / September 19, 2012)

 

By Steve Lopez

September 23, 2012

Having been told by healthcare professionals to take it easy after recent medical challenges, is it safe for me to continue following the local news?

It's not easy to keep your blood pressure under control while reading that former Bell Police Chief Randy Adams is demanding a pension of $510,000 a year, after the notorious scoundrels in that scandal-plagued town paid him the astronomical salary of $457,000 a year. I began twitching when I saw that Adams invoked the 5th Amendment 20 times in a state pension panel hearing, refusing to confirm that he'd sent an email to a Bell official saying he looked forward to "taking all of Bell's money."

And, like I say, other developing stories brought no relief. I nearly ripped open the stitches in my new knee when I slapped myself while reading about the blockhead festival in El Monte, where city officials fired some part-time lifeguards for making a funny, clever, innocent music video parody while on break at the aquatic center.

• 
• Bio | E-mail | Recent columns

"To me it seems like a knee-jerk reaction," said lifeguard Michael Roa, a University of La Verne student who's going for his master's in marital and family therapy. Roa told me he regrets what he did, though, because of the blowback for his hometown, and because lifeguards who weren't as involved in the video also lost their jobs.

As the week wore on, and it became clear that virtually everyone in the world except El Monte City Council members realized the firings were ridiculously out of line, the clueless council decided to call for an independent investigation, even as the city began using cashiers to take over for the lifeguards.
My question is this: If the cashiers are that versatile, can they also take over for the council members?

But my questions aren't always answered, and a case in point involves Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa. He told us, midweek, that he'd been aware of the fact that AEG — owner of the Staples Center and L.A. Live, and the backer of a bid to build a stadium and bring an NFL team to Los Angeles — was up for sale.

But he didn't tell anyone. Not the City Council, not the city official negotiating the deal with AEG, and not the public.

Villaraigosa also refused to say how long he knew, and when prodded at a news conference, he got crabby.
"I'm the mayor. I knew," he said.
Pressed again, he turned into a parrot.
"I'm the mayor and I knew," he said.
Can we hear it once more?
"Let me be clear about something: I'm the mayor and I knew."

Well, I'm a columnist, and here's what I know.
Villaraigosa has some good qualities, but I wouldn't put judgment and leadership near the top of the list. So it would have been nice for him to share what he knew with public officials who have spent a year ironing out a stadium deal with a company that's suddenly ready to bail.
Did AEG fear that it wouldn't be able to pay back the millions fronted by the city, and if so, might the new owner have the same concern? Villaraigosa actually said the reason for the sale was irrelevant to him. If it were me, it would have been the first question I asked.

We've been told for months that we're going into business with people we know at AEG, with minimal risk. And now we're told don't worry, we don't know who the new owners will be, but they'll have to abide by the terms of the same deal.

There's a chance, of course, that it will all work out just fine. My phone lines were buzzing last week with reports that billionaire L.A. physician Patrick Soon-Shiong was talking to all the key players in considering a bid for AEG. Actually it makes sense to have a doctor own a franchise in a league that's become a concussion derby, with more than 3,000 former NFL players suing over lasting damage from head injuries.

But it would be nice if we could hear from Mr. Soon-Shiong or any other prospective bidders before the mayor waves his pom-poms one more time and the City Council rubber stamps a go-ahead on a stadium deal, with a vote scheduled for this week. Let's find out whether they can reassure us that there's a profitable and environmentally sensible way to run a combination football stadium/convention center in the middle of one of the city's more traffic-choked sectors. Let's hear them explain what they think the risks and benefits are to taxpayers, and whether they're interested in a long-term commitment to the city or a quick vanity acquisition.

I sent a couple of questions about all of this to the mayor, but as I mentioned, I got no answers. You'd think he'd be a little more considerate, given all the work I've done in identifying some of the most badly damaged sidewalks among the 5,000 miles of bad pavement in Los Angeles, which gets hundreds of trip-and-fall lawsuits every year. And readers by the dozens keep sending me reports, complete with photos.

In my last sidewalk column, by the way, I offered the mayoral candidates a chance to let me know what they'd do about this mess, much of which is caused by trees the city doesn't bother taking care of. All I can figure is that council members Eric Garcetti and Jan Perry, Controller Wendy Greuel and attorney Kevin James have no answers, because I haven't heard so much as a word from any of them so far.
Do they know I've got palpitations?

steve.lopez@latimes.com

Copyright © 2012, Los Angeles Times