Delgadillo Caters To The Billboard Lobby
Los Angeles City Atty. Rocky Delgadillo continues to prove himself an unsatisfactory elected official. This time, it does not involve protecting errant police officers from legitimate public disciplinary inquiry as he has done repeatedly. Now, the campaign contributions he has taken from the billboard lobby have led to Delgadillo attempts to scuttle the city's billboard controls.
In Friday's L.A. Times story by Steve Hymon, it is reported that Delgadillo -- who took $424,000 in contributions of billboard companies in his 2001 -- is refusing to divulge to public inquiries even where billboards are located in the city.
The information is important in facilitating efforts to discover which billboards may be out of compliance with municipal billboard regulations. It has previously been reported that many billboards have been installed without city permits, or expanded without permits.
Delgadillo seems to enforce the laws he likes and ignore or impede those which fly in the face of his political interests. Restricting the number of billboards, and regulating their size, is an important esthetic value in a crowded city like Los Angeles.
Adequate billboard regulation commands substantial support in the City Council, where such members as Wendy Greuel and Jack Weiss last week were sharply critical of the city attorney's refusal to facilitate enforcement of the rules.
Delgadillo's transgressions are often quite transparent. When he ran unsuccessfully against Jerry Brown for the Democratic nomination for state attorney general, his attacks against Brown were an obvious attempt to curry favor with the police unions. It didn't work. Now, he is just as obviously currying favor with the billboard interests.
One of his frequent techniques is to come up with false interpretations of laws, and then say he is awaiting a court decision to to see whether his interpretation can somehow gain legal sanction. Like many attorneys, Delgadillo is a perennial optimist when it comes to wildly interpreting the law in his own parochial interests. The courts must continually try to cope with such slippery miscreants.
Now, in court filings, Delgadillo is saying that the public should not be able to perform a computerized search by the name of the billboard company in order to get a full list of all the billboards owned by that firm.
As Hyman notes in his article, "That prompted Councilman Jack Weiss to wonder aloud: 'How can we say with a straight face to the public that the billboards in this city should be treated as a secret?'"
Delgadillo is also taking the position that he will notify the billboard companies when a member of the public asks for substantial information about them.
In short, he is serving not the public that elected him, but the billboard companies that made campaign contributions to him.
Thank goodness, Delgadillo, who has also been caught lying about his football playing career in college and after, will eventually be term limited out. It is too bad he cannot be forced into retirement now like some of our county supervisors who long ago outlived their usefulness as elected officials.
In Friday's L.A. Times story by Steve Hymon, it is reported that Delgadillo -- who took $424,000 in contributions of billboard companies in his 2001 -- is refusing to divulge to public inquiries even where billboards are located in the city.
The information is important in facilitating efforts to discover which billboards may be out of compliance with municipal billboard regulations. It has previously been reported that many billboards have been installed without city permits, or expanded without permits.
Delgadillo seems to enforce the laws he likes and ignore or impede those which fly in the face of his political interests. Restricting the number of billboards, and regulating their size, is an important esthetic value in a crowded city like Los Angeles.
Adequate billboard regulation commands substantial support in the City Council, where such members as Wendy Greuel and Jack Weiss last week were sharply critical of the city attorney's refusal to facilitate enforcement of the rules.
Delgadillo's transgressions are often quite transparent. When he ran unsuccessfully against Jerry Brown for the Democratic nomination for state attorney general, his attacks against Brown were an obvious attempt to curry favor with the police unions. It didn't work. Now, he is just as obviously currying favor with the billboard interests.
One of his frequent techniques is to come up with false interpretations of laws, and then say he is awaiting a court decision to to see whether his interpretation can somehow gain legal sanction. Like many attorneys, Delgadillo is a perennial optimist when it comes to wildly interpreting the law in his own parochial interests. The courts must continually try to cope with such slippery miscreants.
Now, in court filings, Delgadillo is saying that the public should not be able to perform a computerized search by the name of the billboard company in order to get a full list of all the billboards owned by that firm.
As Hyman notes in his article, "That prompted Councilman Jack Weiss to wonder aloud: 'How can we say with a straight face to the public that the billboards in this city should be treated as a secret?'"
Delgadillo is also taking the position that he will notify the billboard companies when a member of the public asks for substantial information about them.
In short, he is serving not the public that elected him, but the billboard companies that made campaign contributions to him.
Thank goodness, Delgadillo, who has also been caught lying about his football playing career in college and after, will eventually be term limited out. It is too bad he cannot be forced into retirement now like some of our county supervisors who long ago outlived their usefulness as elected officials.
Labels: City government
posted by Ken Reich at 9:19 AM
1 Comments:
You've got it all wring AGAIN Ken.
First of all, Rocky Delgadillo did NOT take $400k from billboard companies.
They decided on their own to launch an independent expenditure campaign on his behalf, hoping he'd be kinder to them than Mike Feuer (his opponent in the 2001 City Attorney's race) had been on the City Council.
Rocky had no involvement in that I.E. He couldn't have. That would be illegal. And no one has ever credibly claimed he did.
And the billboard companies had it all wrong. It was clear that Rocky was no friend to billboard companies when they chose to back his opponent - Jerry Brown - for Attorney General, 10 to 1.
Ken, if Rocky were doing their bidding, why in the hell would they back his opponent ten to one?! These are businessmen first and foremost and as such, logic would dictate that they would support the person who they believe would better serve their interests. And they backed Jerry...not Rocky.
Ken, your attacks on Rocky are without logic or merit.
And you also were totally off base in saying Rocky was trying to block the release of the location for the illegal billboards. In fact, his office asked the court to decide whether the information could be released, as a matter of law -- which his office made clear in the news coverage, which of course you neglected to mention to your readers.
Ken, it's quite obvious you've got some axe to grind against Rocky.
You continue to weave these fantastical yarns about him that are lacking in logic, veracity, and merit.
Your readers deserve better from a guy with a posted bio as august as your own.
Respect your readers enough to be forthright with them.
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