Election Day 2013

Today is Election Day 2013 for the city of Los Angeles.  At least for me it is because I use the mail option of voting.  So, in case anyone is interested, here's how I voted:

For Mayor - Jan Perry.  This year is a typical, not voting for someone so much as voting against someone, kind of year.  The main contenders seem to be Jan Perry, Eric Garcetti and Wendy Greuel (rhymes with "cruel").  Garcetti is a lifelong politician who jumps from one office to another because of term limits.  Everyone in this city knows his name yet no one can name one thing he has done to make this a better place to live.

Wendy Greuel is about as useful as tits on a bull (as my father would say).  I lived in her district when she was on the city council and she did nothing to help that area.  Developers tore down houses by the score and put up apartment buildings, increasing traffic and sending single family house values down.  She never did anything to stop this.  Traffic got so bad that the area residents were terrified of their kids being hit by cars and her office wouldn't even help to put in speed bumps.  

That leaves Jan Perry.  She has both a bachelor's and master's degree, so she's well-educated.  She believes in reigning in the DWP (Greuel is okay with our water and power rates being increased on a regular basis and over-paying the employees of the DWP).  She seems like she'd be a good choice for mayor, so I'm giving her a shot.

For Controller - same thing.  Dennis Zine is running but I used to live in his district as well.  When I go back there and look at the street where I lived, which is two blocks from his district office, I am appalled.  The street is so torn up it looks like a war zone.  It has looked that way for more than five years now and Zine has not done anything to change it.  We contacted his office repeatedly and his mantra was always "there's no money in the budget."  This, in spite of the fact that a few blocks away, he replaced a neighborhood's street from sidewalk to sidewalk.  New sidewalks, curbs, driveway openings and street.  It seems to me had he simply refinished the street (which was all that was really necessary) he would have had the money to refinish other streets.  He mismanaged the money, for reasons I can only guess at. If he can't manage a simple budget, why would we want him as Controller?

I voted for Jeff Bornstein.  He's a business owner, so hopefully he understand how to handle money.  Really, I was not impressed with anyone who is running for this office.

For City Attorney I voted for Carmen Trutanich.  He is already a city attorney so he understands the work involved.

For the Unified School District I voted for Monica Ratliff.  She's a fifth grade teacher.  I think we need more teachers on the School Board because they know what our schools need.  Perhaps if we put more teachers on and removed the businessmen, lawyers and "advocates" our board could get something done.

For the board of trustees I voted for John Burke (Accounting Professor) because he teaches accounting so should know something about finance (I wish he was running for Controller); Ernest Morena (retired College President) because he has experience in running a college; and Tom Oliver (retired College President) for the same reason.

For Proposition A (raising our sales tax) I voted no because our sales tax is already the highest in the state.  I don't care what the city wants to use the money for, find other ways of raising money rather than increasing sales tax yet again.  By the way, Jan Perry is also against this.

For Proposition B (allowing Department of General Services police to buy into retirement credit when they become members of the police department) I voted no.  If I go to work for another company, I don't get to bring my retirement credits from previous employers with me. That's part of going to work for another company.  If your retirement benefits are so great with the DGS, stay there.  If you now want to work for the LAPD, you can start over just like the rest of us.  Dennis Zine and Wendy Greuel both support this proposition.  Another reason not to vote for either of them.

Election Day is actually March 5, 2013.