Where there is smoke, sure enough, there is fire.

Laura Chick’s new tone and break from rank does not bode well for the City’s claim that the fault lies with Fleishman-Hillard, does it? If vendors and officials are getting stung, don’t you start looking for a source or a root problem? Is the stinging localized? Is Glendale, Pasadena, or Torrance experiencing the same problems?

Is Fleishman-Hillard having billing problems with other clients? Is Fleishman-Hillard’s gouging localized to Los Angeles’ cash cows – DWP, Airports, and Harbor Departments? How about vendors in general, are they complaining and bringing litigation against Los Angeles more than other cities?

Does your city suffer from one or more of the following symptoms?

• Re-organizations and restructuring without legitimate accounting, establishing base numbers for comparison, or conducting performance tracking
• Higher than normal turnover especially at the chief officer or general manager ranks
• Contract awards to insiders or former insiders
• Dodging, rotating, and manipulation of, official appointments
• Vendors claiming foul play
• Civil servants complaining of stress and management-orchestrated retaliation
• Claims of rising worker’s compensation, stress, and conflicts of interest
• Federal, State or local regulatory investigations
• Increasing city litigation and use of confidential settlements
• Stymied by ad hoc mayor appointed investigative and review committees
• Taxation and rapid movement of money from one account to the other without representation
• Citizens suing to stop city and union projects
• Too much finger pointing and no accountability
• Ineffective unfocused costly city services
• Unflattering articles and editorials
• Congestion, itchy, watery eyes, inflamed constituency, and/or
• Too many pot holes
• No corrective or recall actions

If your town suffers from one or more of the above, it is not just blatant incompetence. By definition incompetents can’t achieve this level of collusion. Your town may be suffering from one of these uncommonly deeply-rooted city ailments and systemic dysfunctional leadership and organizational behavior leading, but not limited, to:

• Cronyism and spoils system appointments
• Controlled fraud
• Graft,
• Corruption,
• Wanton mismanagement,
• Collusion
• Gross negligence, and,
• Dereliction of duty.

These symptoms are brought on by repeated terms of voter apathy. Draw your own conclusions. The facts are:

• We voted the incumbents into office.
• The incumbents used their power and authority to govern the city
• The incumbents control the city's endeavors
• The incumbents are responsible for the situation we are in.

On March 8, 2005 VOTE!!!
--------------------------------------------------------

Los Angeles Daily News

City Hall cleanup
Rooting out fraud in Los
Angeles is full-time job

Sunday, January 09, 2005 - If City Controller Laura Chick gets her way and starts up a special fraud-busting unit to find and destroy corruption, theft and even waste in City Hall, it's sure to be the
busiest department in the city.

There's plenty of suspicious activity and outright fraud to keep the investigators working 24-7 at the Department of Water and Power alone. The idea for the unit stemmed from Chick's audit of
billings to the DWP from a private public relations firm which sparked allegations that about $4 million of the $24 million contracts could not be accounted for.

And that's just one city department, admittedly one that has done whatever it pleases for most of a century.

Not surprisingly, the idea was at first opposed by Mayor James Hahn, saying it was redundant to the Controller's Office -- but since everyone is lining up for it, the mayor has chosen once again not to fight, at least out in the open.

Even with added powers, Chick faces an awesome task in trying to clean up City Hall.

Print version:
http://www.dailynews.com/cda/article/print/0,1674,200~20951~2642438,00.html
Article version:
http://www.dailynews.com/Stories/0,1413,200~20951~2642438,00.html