Free Republic

A campaign fundraiser for Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa has been charged with illegally funneling $26,000 in contributions to the mayor and former City Councilman Jack Weiss, according to a five-count grand jury indictment unsealed Friday. Prosecutors with the LA County district attorney's office contend that Alexander Hugh, worked with Annette Lee, to have employees at Lee's escrow company give donations of $1,000 or more to the campaigns of Villaraigosa and Weiss. Hugh reimbursed the employees with cash, an illegal practice known as campaign money laundering. Campaign fundraising violations only occasionally result in criminal prosecutions. The most recent concluded in...

Los Angeles -- Elvira Sosa left Mexico for the United States more than 30 years ago, but last year was the first time she'd been counted as part of the U.S. Census. Sosa was among thousands of illegal immigrants in Los Angeles who filled out a census form last year, and city officials said the response, especially among Latinos, might have saved the area money and congressional representation. The increased count was purposeful: A Census Bureau outreach program...included Spanish call centers that would field questions about the census, plus billboards, bus advertisements and fliers with information... The response: The 2010...

Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa has agreed to pay nearly $42,000 in fines to resolve state and city investigations into his practice of accepting tickets to sports events, concerts and pricey entertainment activities without reporting them as gifts, officials said Friday. In a pact drafted by officials with the state Fair Political Practices Commission and the city Ethics Commission, Villaraigosa admitted that he failed to report free tickets to 34 events during his first five years in office, including Los Angeles Lakers games and concerts at such venues as Gibson Amphitheater. Villaraigosa faced a maximum fine of more than $167,000...

In a move closely watched by other Southern California law enforcement agencies, LAPD Chief Chalie Beck has ordered his officers end the practice of immediately seizing the cars of undocumented immigrants who are stopped at sobriety checkpoints. The move comes amid concerns that police were unfairly targeting those drivers. The news came as a relief for Maria Ranjel of Boyle Heights. Her husband and three sons are undocumented immigrants who drive all the time, even though they're ineligible to apply for drivers licenses in California. “We know well that it’s against the law to drive without a license but it’s...

If only this were a coalition of the left and the right working out differences. But alas, it’s just a coalition of mostly liberal politicians who used to label themselves by a political party and now would rather fly stealth. Sigh. If you are not familiar with “No Lables”, no worries, it’s brand new and they certainly deserve a Hat Tip for brevity. Here’s their declaration: We are not labels – we are people. We care deeply about our country. We are frustrated and concerned about the tone of politics. We are passionate about addressing America’s challenges. We are Democrats,...

Education: L.A.'s mayor has blasted his old bosses for blocking reforms and protecting bad teachers. Could the unions' charmed political life finally be ending? We can only hope so. Antonio Villaraigosa was once an organizer for United Teachers of Los Angeles and a lobbyist for the California Teachers Association. Now mayor of Los Angeles, he has been a staunch liberal throughout his political career. So his speech last week at a Sacramento conference of the Public Policy Institute of California was bound to make news in a man-bites-dog way. Here's a sample of what he said about his old employer,...

Los Angeles police who confronted and fatally shot an apparently drunk man with a knife who was threatening a pregnant woman and her child is a hero, Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa asserted Wednesday. The mayor also defended police Chief Charlie Beck, who was shouted down at a community meeting meant to calm residents in the neighborhood where the officer-involved shooting occurred Sunday afternoon near MacArthur Park. Protesters have taken to the streets in anger three nights in a row — setting fires, dumping garbage and throwing rocks and bottles at police — since an LAPD bicycle patrol officer shot and killed...

Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa on Tuesday rebuked Valero Energy Corp. and Tesoro Corp., which operate refineries in Wilmington, for bankrolling a measure that would effectively scuttle the state's efforts to curb greenhouse gas emissions. "Go home, Texas oil companies," Villaraigosa urged at a news conference aimed at encouraging voters to oppose Proposition 23, a November ballot initiative to suspend California's 2006 climate change law until the state's unemployment rate drops. "We won't compromise our environmental and health standards so you can make more money," he said. The sharp tone was an early indication of the battle expected over the measure, which...

Descending via u-haul from the gorgeous Blue Ridge Mountains of North Carolina to live in this one-story ghetto some call Los Angeles was supposed to be only a three-year crisis of middle age, not eight and counting. And so here we are and we do try to make the best of things with some of the unique events only a Hollywood can offer. As a matter of fact, just a few weeks ago my life peaked at the American Cinematheque after exchanging a few words with Pam Grier (male heterosexuals will want to click that link) before a big screen...

News that Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa received as much as $100,000 in free tickets to various sports and other events, but either lost or threw away the documentation detailing who gave him the tickets and why, could be a major tax problem for the mayor. Tax accountants I spoke to suggest that more than likely the Mayor should have reported the free tickets as income on his tax reforms...

At the heart of the current controversy involving free tickets at Los Angeles City Hall, one question stands out: If Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa attended big-time entertainment events because he was conducting city business, why did he not keep better records of those public duties? For weeks, Villaraigosa has argued that he appeared in an official capacity at dozens of concerts, sporting events and awards shows since 2005, from sitting in box seats at Dodger Stadium to attending a 2007 performance by R&B singer Mary J. Blige at L.A. Live. Those duties, he said, exempted him from the law that would...

LOS ANGELES (KABC) -- The LAPD is pushing for an exemption of the city's boycott of Arizona when it comes to a contract with a company that operates L.A.'s red-light cameras. The issue was on the council's agenda for Tuesday, but they decided to postpone discussion until Wednesday. The council has to decide whether to continue doing business with American Traffic Solutions, based in Scottsdale, or honor its pledge to boycott Arizona. The company operates red-light cameras at 32 L.A. intersections, but the city's contract with American Traffic Solutions expires at the end of June. The LAPD urges the city...

The raft of boycotts being imposed on Arizona over its immigration law could up end hitting Hispanic workers as hard as anyone. Hispanics make up a huge chunk of the state's hospitality and service sector workforce -- and with city governments and organizations pulling the plug on travel and conventions in Arizona, state officials point out that Hispanic workers stand to lose. They say it makes little sense for officials protesting the Arizona law out of concern that it would subject Hispanic immigrants to racial profiling to register their dismay by targeting the tourism industry.

Immigration: An Arizona official asks a good question: If California wants to boycott Arizona over the way it enforces federal law, what about the electricity California gets from there? The problem with righteous indignation is that when others call you on it and tell you to put your money where your mouth is, it can cause an embarrassing leak in your hot air balloon. Gary Pierce, a commissioner on the five-member Arizona Corporation Commission, has done just that, calling the bluff of the Los Angeles City Council and Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa. Pierce wrote Villaraigosa a letter saying in essence that...

Washington (CNSNews.com) – Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa told CNSNews.com Thursday that illegal immigration has not contributed to his city’s budget problems, but, on the contrary, that illegal immigration adds to the "economic might" of California. "In California, I think there’s a real sense that these immigrants provide a great deal to the economic might of the state," said Villaraigosa. (Snip).........Daniel Nasaw, BBC News, Washington: The Los Angeles city council has voted to boycott Arizona businesses in one of the strongest moves yet against the state's new immigration law. Council members agreed to bar official travel to Arizona and avoid...

L.A. Teetering on Bankruptcy, Former Mayor Says Wednesday, 05 May 2010 02:20 PM By: Dan Weil California’s finances have deteriorated rapidly since the beginning of the financial meltdown in 2007, and now it’s really getting bad. “Los Angeles is facing a terminal fiscal crisis: between now and 2014 the city will likely declare bankruptcy,” former mayor Richard Riordan wrote in a Wall Street Journal opinion piece. “Yet Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa and the City Council have been either unable or unwilling to face this fact.” Riordan’s column was co-authored by Alexander Rubalcava of Rubalcava Capital Management. The basic problem: pension and...

Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa called Tuesday for all city agencies -- except for police, other public safety and revenue-generating departments -- to close for two days a week starting April 12 because of the city's continuing budget crisis. "We have to act, and we have to act quickly," Villaraigosa said at a press conference. The mayor said he would direct the city's chief administrative officer to immediately begin planning to set the shutdown in motion

Los Angeles mayor Villaraigosa’s chief of staff made it crystal clear: “Unions have priced themselves out of a job.” America’s big cities have come to a grim choice: the union party is over or the city is over. The costs of union pensions and healthcare coverage have officials in cash strapped cities and states confronting their union masters and demanding dramatic benefit cuts from the same unions that hold them on a leash. Memphis is looking to increase its retired employees’ healthcare premiums by around 15%. Toledo ripped $3.1 million from its fire fighters union contract. At least 17 states...

LOS ANGELES—Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa once organized for a teacher's union here, and later ran a branch of the American Federation of Government Employees. That makes him an unlikely advocate for cutting the benefits of the city's workers. The Union Delegate Conference in Los Angeles. But with the city facing a budget deficit that could drain its reserves by summer, Mayor Villaraigosa wants to re-open contract talks with 45,000 cops, firefighters, librarians and other city employees in hopes of persuading them to contribute more to their pensions and health-care costs. His deputy chief of staff, Matt Szabo, puts it bluntly: "Unions...

A day after Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa ordered the elimination of 1,000 jobs to address the city’s budget crisis, Chief Deputy City Atty. Bill Carter wrote a memo stating the mayor does not have authority under the City Charter “on his own to order layoffs.” In the Friday memo, Carter advised employees in the office of City Atty. Carmen Trutanich that Villaraigosa lacks the power to compel city department heads to lay off employees, an opinion that puts the city's top lawyer at odds with the mayor. Trutanich has strenuously opposed City Administrative Officer Miguel Santana's proposal to eliminate...