by smf for 4LAKidsNews
On July 18 The Daily News ran the following editorial, – complete with photos of hizzonner and some arm candy at the Grammy Awards (did he pay for those tickets?) calling Mayor Tony to task, out, or to the woodshed:
We say to Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa: It's time to quit monkeying around and get to work
Los Angeles Daily News Editorial
Just one year into his second term, with no big election or high-powered appointment to look forward to, Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa seems to have run out of steam. He's acting like a lame-duck official – but with three years still to go. (Photo by Jason Merritt/Getty Images)
July 18, 2010 - Checked out. AWOL. Taking a powder. Disengaged. However you want to put it, it means the same thing when it comes to the top leadership in Los Angeles.
Just one year into his second term, with no big election or high-powered appointment to look forward to, Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa seems to have run out of steam. He's acting like a lame-duck official – but with three years still to go. The passion and energy that propelled him into office, and turned his July 2005 inauguration into a celebration befitting a head of state, is all but gone at a time when the city is in crisis and needs it most. (more)
On Aug 1 the DN, again in an editorial, gave Mayor Tony his marching orders:
Antonio Villaraigosa could be the education mayor -- if he takes charge of LAUSD reform
Los Angeles Daily News - Aug 1, 2010
ANTONIO Villaraigosa swept into the Mayor's Office in 2005 in large part due to a promise to reform Los Angeles' monumentally failing public education system. It mattered little to voters that the mayor of Los Angeles has no endowed authority over the schools. They believed he could effect change. (more)
…and this morning the mayor – or a least his deputy – answered the call.
Joan Sullivan: Why the education mayor wants a revolution
By Joan Sullivan, Deputy Mayor for Education in the Los Angeles Daily News -
Aug 3, 2010 -- WHEN Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa first took office, he boldly declared education to be the civil rights issue of our time. Five years later, after tackling the issue head-on and confronting deep institutional resistance to change, there is indeed a difference in his outlook. He believes that we need to be braver and move faster.
Imparting this sense of urgency to the Los Angeles Unified School District is, however, no easy task. Yet, he has fearlessly set in motion an unprecedented education reform agenda. (more)
The thrice adjudged unconstitutionality of what the Daily News and Deputy Mayor Sullivan suggests notwithstanding, the mayor has his hands more-than-full running the city. Efforts to run the schools too would demonstrate contempt of the courts, the state constitution (which prohibits municipal government meddling in school district governance) - and the electorate who elected him to be the mayor of Los Angeles - not the education mayor or the DWP mayor or any other flavor of mayor. I realize that LA has a weak mayor/strong council structure – but at times Mayor Tony seems not up to even that. And all the data and evidence of success at the Mayor's Partnership Schools described by Deputy Mayor Sullivan is – to be kind – not quite as apparent or real as she claims.
When Ron Kaye was editor of the Daily News the pattern was:
- a news story about some issue – usually with a slant in a direction Ron wanted to go – and
- one or two days later an editorial stating the Daily News opinion for those who missed reading it between the lines in the news feature.
Invariably the news feature and the editorial seemed to be written on the same word processor.
The three stories above, two editorials and an op-ed from the mayor's office, seem to be written on the same word processor too. One is left to wonder where the word processor is located. In the editorial offices? ….or the mayor’s office? Or whether it matters anyway.
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