MyFoxPhilly

Big Weasel, Big Tax Hike, Big Scam
By Walter Moore, Candidate for Mayor of Los Angeles, WalterMooreForMayor.com
July 13, 2008

When someone asks you to vote for the proposed $30 million tax hike to fund "anti-gang programs," I want you to utter two words: "Big Weasel."

Big Weasel, you will recall, is the "ex" gang member whose "anti-gang program," called "No Guns," received over $1.5 million from City Hall in a single year.

But Big Weasel wasn't an "ex" gang member at all. The very next year, federal prosecutors charged him with selling an assault rifle, a machine gun, two pistols and two silencers. Turns out he was arming his gang. He pleaded guilty.

No one at City Hall bothers to monitor the hundreds of millions of dollars of your money they routinely hand over to sketchy, unregulated "non-profit" organizations like Big Weasel's.

City Hall, by the way, not only hands over your cash, but gives these unregulated groups your real estate, too. For example, City Hall recently decided to "lease" a fire station to a group called "Aztecs Rising" for ten years for just $1 per year. You and I can't rent a locker in a bus station for $1 per day, much less an entire building for $1 per yer.

City Hall, moreover, can't seem to get its story straight about how how much of your money it spends on these "programs:"

In October 2007, City Council Member Cardenas said, according to the Daily News, that the City spends $78 million per year on gang prevention, suppression and intervention.

In February 2008, a study for which the City paid $500,000 said the City's various "anti-gang" programs cost $160 million per year.

In July 2008, the City Council started claiming, in the proposed ordinance that would raise our taxes, that it spends only $24 million per year on such programs.

That's quite a disparity, isn't it?

Want to know why City Council knocked the number down so low -- from $160 million per year to just $24 million per year -- in the ordinance? They did it to con you into thinking they won't use the tax hike to fund other programs -- you know, like when they diverted money from the trash fee hike that was supposed to pay for 1,000 new police officers.

You see, the proposed ordinance says the new revenues cannot be used to "supplant the level of funding previously committed for the programs . . . ." So by setting the number artificially low, at $24 million, they can divert the extra $136 million or $54 million per year already spent on "anti-gang" programs to something really important -- like more subsidies for the developers who fund their campaigns.

That helps explain the second measure City Council approved the same day for November's ballot, which the Daily News summarized thus: "The ballot measure, approved by the City Council on Friday, would erase restrictions on height and the number of units in publicly funded low-income and senior projects." City Council does not care about your quality of life. More density means more units, more profits, more excuses to subsidize contributors' projects.

And you won't believe what passes for an "anti-gang" program. My favorite example is a "program" to teach kids how to install waterless urinals. Seriously: that's one of the programs on which City Hall squanders your money. But that one doesn't even show up in the budget, because it's funded through the DWP.

Hey, here's an idea: instead of funding more "Big Weasel" programs, let's pass Jamiel's Law, so our city is no longer a sanctuary for illegal alien gang bangers.

And while we're at it, let's hire more police. Let's keep hiring until we hit the number Bratton says he needs to make ours the safest big city in America, namely, 12,000, rather than the mere 10,000 officers that Villaraigosa has set as his goal.

The City has more than enough money to bring the police force up to 12,000 officers. Revenues and fees are at an all-time high of $7 billion per year. That's up $1.7 billion per year from just a few years ago.

We don't need a new tax. We don't need a new "Big Weasel" program. We need a new mayor, namely, yours truly, Walter Moore. Click here to help.

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