While 45 percent of LA voters recently called for Antonio Villaraigosa's early retirement, the mayor has his own plan to get rid of the "deadwood" at City Hall.
In pitching his hypothetical plan to erase the looming $530 million city budget deficit, the mayor visited editorial boards at local newspapers where he sought to prepare the public for his real plan to reduce payroll costs.
Forget furloughs and pay cuts and no raises and free hours of work and all the other proposals mentioned in the mayor's budget plan. What Villaraigosa wants is an unbelievably costly plan to offer early retirement to thousands of city workers by giving them five extra years credit on their pensions.
The mayor, in an interview with Times reporters and editors, said he is reluctant to lay off anyone in the city's 50,000-member workforce because it could lead to cutbacks in municipal services. However, he acknowledged that sending workers into retirement would be better than sending them to the unemployment line.
"Of the two - I'm not saying either one is perfect - early retirement is better than layoffs. Because you're laying off a lot of deadwood, you know, the folks who wanted to go anyway," Villaraigosa told the LA Times.
"We believe, strongly, that it is better to preserve the younger workers who are on the frontline of city service and to allow those closest to retirement to retire early."
Deadwood? At City Hall? Who knew? Does he mean anyone over 50 who could take advantage of his offer? Isn't that age discrimination? Somebody should report it to the city Human Rights Commission but better hurry because he wants to eliminate it.
Contrary to the mayor's discriminatory statement, deadwood in the workplace is not age defined. And that's the real problem. City Hall has awarded sweetheart contracts to the unions that reward longevity, not productivity, and so there is no workplace discipline which results in a toxic environment where motivation to achieve is up to the individual and too many people just go through the motions.
Speaking of deadwood, the mayor also made some 2007comments about his boy, poor Jack Weiss, that all but put the kiss of death on the wannabe City Attorney's campaign against Carmen "Nuch" Trutanich.
The mayor noted the LAPD union, Police Protective League recently hired Don Novey, the former head of the powerful state prison guards union as its political consultant, and spent $250,000 on radio spots, $17,636 on a mailer, and $2,645 on a billboard highlighting Trutanich's endorsements by District Attorney Steve Cooley and Sheriff Lee Baca.
"These guys are going to spend a lot of money. Don Novey is leading a charge," Villaraigosa told the Times. "I can't guarantee it; I can't tell you I know for sure what's going to happen. But I can tell you - he's a good man. He's a good man, and I think people need to take a second look."
That's Weiss he says is a good man who needs a "second look" because what people have seen in their first look was so unsatisfactory.
Bye, bye, Jack.
