Due to a lack of action at Los Angeles City Hall, under the leaderlesship of dummy Mayor Antonio Villaraiogsa and the scared and confused L.A. City Council, L.A. Quality & Productivity Czar Zuma Dogg has stepped in and is calling the budget shots at the city council meetings; sorting it out, and making the decisions on what should be sold, what should be kept and what a Judge would say to an L.A. City bankruptcy filing.
Here are minutes from the meeting where Zuma Dogg laid it out for the city and constituents (All of this information is discussed in the "Zuma Dogg Show" 6pm video (Pts 1 & 2) posted on this thread:
Public-Private Partnerships: I spoke with L.A. City Councilmember Bernard Parks of the Budget and Finance Committee to clarify what "Public-Private Partnerships" meant. It can mean three things:
1) Running it together.
2) Selling it entirely. (Some partnership!)
3) Something that allows city to maintain ownership. For example, leasing the asset to an operator.
CONVENTION CENTER: SELL! You might think the city shouldn't sell an asset like the Convention Center, because it's a revenue generator. But CM Parks says that municipalities are not the best operators for convention centers (not just L.A., but municipalities in general) because they cannot operate competitively in the convention marketplace because of the bureaucracies that bog down municipalities as operators. A lack of flexibility and quick-responsiveness, if you will. For example, the city has to go out and take competitive bids, and I guess that slows things down too much. So the best thing would be to SELL the Convention Center so a better operator can run it, and therefore keep it booked more often, and therefore the city will benefit by the added revenue by the added convention business.
L.A. ZOO: Don't sell. But let a private, non-profit Animal group operate the Zoo. CM Parks feels the animal activist community is big enough, vocal enough and caring enough that they could raise the money, even in this economy, to run the zoo and they could do a better job with compassion.
AIRPORTS: LAX not being discussed, although it could be. Right now there are the other two airport up for discussion. I don't have an opinion on the move to make here. I'll ask around and find out. One option could be to lease it to another operator, therefore City will still own the asset.
PARKING: DON'T SELL! CM Parks reminded me of the lesson to be learned from Chicago who sold off their parking rights for a one time budget plug. Then the next year they still had a budget deficit, didn't have the parking rights anymore to sell again -- and lost the badly needed revenue. I don't even know if I would want to lease away the rights for a given period. Put it this way, if L.A. has to sell parking rights FOREVER, IT'S SO BAD YOU GOTTA DECLARE BANKRUPTCY!
BANKRUPTCY: Villaraidummy is still denying that the situation is as bad as it is. And as usual, the Alfred E. Neuman of mayor's (What me, worry?) thinks the city is going to come up with the solution in time. IF HE COULD HAVE PULLED IT TOGETHER IN THE FIRST PLACE, HE WOULD HAVE. HE DOESN'T HAVE WHAT IT TAKES. When I took geometry in high school. I got an "F" on the first test. An "F" on the second test. And and "F" on the third test. My teacher said, "If you get an "A" on the final, you'll pass (won't go bankrupt.) I said, "What are the chances I'll be able to get an "A" on the final, when I just got all "F's"? It's not like I was trying to FAIL. So I don't think the city will be able to navigate the storm. So if the city goes for the "b" word, the judge will require the city to reduce it's payroll.
PENSION REFORM: MUST GET DONE. It's what got us into this mess. And not just the Wall Street and Real Estate losses, but sheer giant burden on the general fund in the first place. Problem is, any pension reform will not help the current situation. So that's why it must happen. It's politically neutral across the board. It won't affect anyone already getting pensions. And anyone involved in the decision will not be affected politically, or financially. So that's why I'm looking to see if they can make THAT happen. If they can't do this...they can't do ANYTHING!
EMPLOYEE LOSS: At some point they're gonna have to throw in the towel. With 1000 employees to be fired, on top of the 2,400 employees taking early retirement, how is the city going to function. Because you also have to consider, they said they are going to raise the amount of early retirements being offered (above 2,400) and they will probably have to fire more than 1000 people (cause they never go far enough, so this is the first pitch, introductory, first offer of 1000 firings. PLUS, furloughs. HOW IS THE CITY GOING TO FUNCTION!!! If this was a UFC match, Big John would have stepped in a long time ago to end the match. If this were a private business operation, the "going out of business sale" would be over and it would be the fixture sale. Hardest hit: Accounting department. Credit markets concerned city will not be able to meet it's financial obligation. 1) No money to pay back loans. 2) Accounting department won't be able to meet obligations due to lack of employees to operate department. We KNOW it will be more expensive for the city to borrow money, but if the credit and financial markets decide they don't want to lend to L.A., at all...the city is OVER and a decision on whether to file, or not won't even be though.
QUALITY & PRODUCTIVITY: With the city having to operate not only with a tremendous loss of employees, but the most knowledgeable and experience employees who have been running the city for all intents and purposes, the city must look at "method for management of quality and productivity." Read my article "Interpreting Deming's 14 Points" which reviews the 14 Points of "Quality & Productivity" according to everyone in the world, except Walter Moore.
SEE ALSO: "The Zuma Dogg Show" 6pm report Parts 1 & 2 on this blog. Plus new video from the ABC TV film debacle in the city hall rotunda when one of the producers tried to grab the ZumaCAM out of ZD's hand. (Didn't you hear the Jim Croce song, "You don't tug on Superman's cape?")
BONUS: RITA for Sunland mentions Zuma Dogg on KEVIN JAMES KRLA radio show regarding Cardenas' SHADY 4 mil public improvement. http://ow.ly/ZDTZ
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