LA

Technically they are called drought busters, but the purpose is to focus on excessive water usage. The DWP is tasked with patrolling the city. LAT:

Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa announced Monday that he would reactivate a program of "drought busters" to preach the message of water conservation.

Department of Water and Power employees will roam the nation's second-largest city and issue friendly advice to residents they see wasting water.

Excessive lawn watering and sidewalk spraying are expected to be top targets.

They have a large task in front of them.

The mayor will unveil details of the program, which centers on having five to 10 people patrolling the city, at a news conference today at DWP headquarters. Los Angeles covers about 469 square miles.

That is a heck of a lot of miles per person.

That said, publicizing the effort should help persuade folks to follow the rules, lest they risk a fine.

The Mayor went with a close ally who shares his goals to increase the development of renewable energy sources to head the Department of Water and Power. LAT:

As he stood next to the mayor, Nahai vowed to put the utility at the forefront in the development of renewable energy sources, such as solar and wind.

"I see the bright promise of greening this utility . . . and having Los Angeles become the center, and the leader, for renewable energy," he said.

Nahai said he would assemble a DWP management team to specifically focus on renewable energy.

Developing renewable energy sources is critical to our sustainability and it is great to see it getting such a high priority. The key will be:, does the city simply purchase not so green power from out of state and ship it in, or does it develop it locally, emphasizing both good jobs and a clean environment?

Meanwhile, the environmental community is thrilled to see Nahai get the gig.

Nahai's nomination has the backing of several key environmentalists, who have lobbied the mayor's office and at least two council members for his appointment.

Former DWP chief S. David Freeman, a Villaraigosa ally who is considered one of the city's leading environmentalists, said Nahai would restore the utility to its "glory days."

"We finally have got the mayor's vision, and the general manager's ability, on the same page," said Freeman, who is Villaraigosa's president of the city's Harbor Commission.

Today I had the high honor of taking over the Fire Dog Lake weekly labor issues blog post. Here is was was published thanks to Tula over at the AFL-CIO. It is an update to an earlier piece. Go read the comments!

The Daily News is well known for being virulently anti-worker. Basically, the paper takes the position that everyone should be making poor wages and grateful for having a job, no matter how dangerous. The paper supports privatization and job outsourcing and routinely editorializes against workers’ rights issues.

The other week, the paper published a breathless report about the salaries of Los Angeles Department of Water & Power (LADWP) employees, publishing the name, job title and corresponding salary of all employees in a searchable online database, in tandem with an article about how much they make.

The editor went so far as to put up a note at the head of the article, urging people to read the article and “see how your pay compares with theirs.” This is a divisive attempt to try and depress the salaries of other city employees who are currently in contract negotiations with the city. The Daily News wanted to influence the bargaining process by publicly smearing the LADWP workers. (The paper has since pulled the article, but this link still includes the editor’s note.)

What they ended up doing was putting the workers—and all of us who depend on water and power systems—at risk. Typically when salary information is released for reasons of public transparency, only job titles are listed, not full names. By publishing names, the paper opened up a treasure trove of information for would-be saboteurs. Imagine how much damage someone could do by creating a fake badge, complete with real name and title to get access to our water and power system. Individuals already have attempted to do so in the past. In addition:

The Los Angeles Daily News is virulently anti-worker. They think everyone should be making poor wages and grateful for having a job, no matter how dangerous. This weekend they came out with a breathless report about the salaries of DWP employees, publishing the amount every single employee makes online. The editor went so far as to put up a note at the head of the article, urging people to read the article and "see how your pay compares with theirs". This is a divisive attempt to try and depress the salaries of other city employees who are currently in contract negotiations.

For years the DWP has under-hired workers. There are hundreds of jobs that go unfilled. The end result is an experience and aging workforce that therefor gets paid more than the average city employee. 40% of the workforce is near retirement age. That doesn't even begin to figure in the fact that many of these workers, particularly those who spend their days around electrical lines, work in extremely dangerous conditions.

The DWP also wants to hire another 768 workers to upgrade the power system, and it must compete for those workers against private utilities that can pay even more for skilled workers.

Brian D'Arcy, business manager of IBEW Local 18 that represents 8,080 DWP workers, defended the pay scale and said DWP workers' jobs are unlike any others.

"It's a much more industrial environment, much tougher work, more complicated and more skill that's involved. There's not a lot of room for error over here," D'Arcy said. "Even among the clerical workers, the predominant clerical is customer service representatives.

"I wouldn't want to do their jobs, take complaints."

[note: Brian is the co-chair of Working Californians]

Not many people would for bad pay. That is what the LADN is arguing for. They are encouraging a race to the bottom, where workers should compete to earn the least. They are attempting to publicly shame DWP employees for their salaries.

It was heartening to see comments coming into the LADN, pushing back against them for attacking workers. Here is one from nuttingcowboy:

For those of you who've never been close enough to live wires to hear them hum, or worked 40 to 100 feet off the ground let me give you a few clues. Electricity over 6,000 volts can jump up to an inch per 1,000 volts in dry air. The little lines at the top of the pole can carry up to 120,000 volts, the ones that feed the transformers carry 12,000 and your street lights run on between 6,000 and 7,600 volts. It takes less power to light a 25 watt light bulb than it does to kill a healthy person. Lineman expose themselves to hazards daily that would make any of the whiners in here wet themselves. (greatly increasing their exposure to shock) They work higher and deeper than most folks would go and you almost never know they're there. Now I'm no fan of the top heavy politically driven management of the DWP that's been using utility rates to circumvent Prop 13 for a generation; but before you whine about the IBEW workers making $100,000 a year (with overtime), climb that pole in the rain to restore service while the power's still on after you've already put in 11 hours that day. Or visit a friend in the hospital as they recover from the internal burns caused by electrocution; then you can complain about what hard working service people earn. Until then; when you turn on that light, you might thank an electrician.

Indeed.

This is yet one more example of an editorial agenda creeping into the LADN. The editors note at the top of the article borders on being unethical. There should be a clear line between the news and the opinion page.

Ever watch the movie The Italian Job? The re-make with Mark Whalberg with the Mini Coopers. Remember the scene where the "real Napster" shuts down the state of the art control room of Los Angeles traffic control center? The whole city is paralyzed from the disruption. It is that critical to the functionality of the city.

The never center is the most technologically advanced in the world. One would assume that they would be analyzing all of the data they collect to identify problem areas, track traffic patterns, see where growth is occurring. Wrong. They collect the data and then discard it days later. LAT:

The data beep and shine on screens in a state-of-the-art traffic control center that looks like something out of a science fiction movie. The information -- Wilshire Boulevard jammed in Westwood, Broadway wide-open through downtown -- is used to adjust the timing of traffic lights, easing the flow of vehicles through the city's busy streets. The data are instantly placed on the Internet, available to commuters and traffic reporters.

But although the sensors and computers collect massive amounts of data about traffic patterns and congestion, they do little to help engineers plan for the city's growing transportation needs -- or determine how development is affecting traffic.

That's because the city does not save the information for more than a few days, using it only to direct traffic in real time by adjusting the speed at which lights turn from green to amber to red.

Because the information is discarded, it cannot be used to determine over time where traffic is increasing -- or by how much.

In fact, city officials said they don't have traffic counts for some of the city's busiest intersections -- and can't say how much congestion has increased over the years

The lack of traffic data is becoming more of a vexing issue at City Hall and in L.A. neighborhoods, especially in the midst of a building boom that has increased both residential and office development.

How short sided was it to put all of these fancy systems into place and then not invest the relatively small amount of money into data capture and analysis? Seems like a no-brainer for me. Loss of good data is among the most frustrating things for a political organizer like myself. People bend over backwards to make sure information in voter files from campaign make it back into the main system. To think that Los Angeles would not have kept that invaluable data is mind-blowing. Once lost, there is no way to get it back.

It would cost about $1 million to get a system up and running, but the expert are saying it would not be fully installed until 2011.

The only way to know what projects to tackle first to alleviate the backups is to have good data, especially historical data. The sooner they have it up and running the better decision can be made.

It's of badge of honor really, well except for the millions of Los Angeles residents who sit in traffic for an average of 72 hours. The good news, if you can call it that is that it is not getting any worse according to this particular study. However, there is some controversy over the accuracy of the statistics and their importance. LAT:

But the findings of the Texas Transportation Institute were immediately challenged Tuesday by some experts who warned that the study significantly underestimates the severity of the region's traffic congestion.

The intense debate over statistics reflects the enormous influence of chronic traffic congestion on the lives of Southern Californians and the tough policy decisions that must be made to combat it.

The Texas report says motorists in Los Angeles and Orange counties spent an average of 72 extra hours in rush-hour traffic in 2005, the subject of the current study. That's one day shy of two full workweeks a year and is 20 hours more than in 1985. The delay represents the difference between how long it takes to travel during peak periods compared with hours when traffic flows freely.

"L.A. is still the king of congestion," said David Schrank, co-author of the institute's Urban Mobility Report.

Is there a crown that comes with that title? I mock, because well, it is such a huge issue. There is no easy solution. Like the times says, there are only tough decisions to be made. It is important that pressure continues to be brought to bear on those in power to fix it and that a bright light shines upon their decisions. Traffic congestion alleviation is crucial to the quality of life of Californians.

More on the controversy over these statistics:

But Ikhrata said "the average is misleading" because between 2000 and 2005 "our congestion increased tremendously." He said using an average delay per year for a region as vast as Los Angeles and Orange counties does not reflect the experience of motorists, particularly in highly congested corridors.

Martin Wachs, a transportation expert at Rand Corp. in Santa Monica, agreed that average delay is not the best measure of what motorists are experiencing. "I am not interested in arcane indices," Wachs said. "I am interested in travel time."

"Traffic congestion is worsening gradually and steadily in the Los Angeles metropolitan area and most other large American cities," said Wachs, who headed the transportation research centers at UC Berkeley and UCLA for decades.

Whether it is terrible and getting worse, or just plain awful, it is unacceptable.

The LAT is on it. Well, sort of...

The Los Angeles City Council returned from its three-week recess last week and wasted little time diving into difficult issues.

Even before lunch, four members -- Eric Garcetti, Wendy Greuel, Tom LaBonge and Jan Perry -- stepped outside the heavily air-conditioned City Hall to hold a news conference and take a provocative stand against power outages.

They decided to spend the remainder of the article on talks of weddings and foreign trips rather than the substance of the councilmembers' comments about the DWP.

Notice, they are trying to be snarky about the decision to talk outside in the heat. So informative.

The past year's low precipitation rate is starting to cause problems and has prompted Long Beach to "impose the region's most severe water restrictions in years". Water is about to get a lot more limited and thus expensive. LAT:

The measures, which took effect immediately after the city declared a water emergency, will force residents and businesses to change their behavior, including when they water lawns and how restaurants serve water to diners.

Regional water officials said Long Beach's action could be a precursor for other communities around Southern California as they grapple with the drought and a federal judge's ruling last month on water deliveries from the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta.

The delta is a key source of imported water for the Southland, and officials believe the court ruling -- set to take effect this winter -- could reduce supplies by 30%.

This is not an isolated problem. The Metropolitan Water District, which gets about 60% of its water from the delta, is set to finalize water allocations in October. First they need to complete a study of the judge's decision. The limited water may increase costs and those will be passed on to consumers. The DWP seems headed in the same direction as Long Beach.

The Los Angeles Department of Water and Power may enforce mandatory water rationing similar to Long Beach's if the judge's decision is upheld and if the region has another bone-dry winter.

"Because water has been plentiful, with that came a certain degree of comfort and complacency," said David Nahai, president of the DWP board. "We have to jolt Angelenos out of that kind of mind-set. If things don't turn out favorably, we may return to [drought] protocols."

The new rules in Long Beach are reminiscent of the strict water policies adopted across California during the drought of 1990-91.

But officials said Southern California is in better shape now than during that drought because agencies have been aggressively storing water in recent years in reservoirs, which remain at healthy levels.

True, but if we get another dry winter, we will be in big trouble.

That reminds me. I need to talk to my landlord about the sprinklers in front of my building. Seeing them go off in the middle of the day really ticks me off.

California is at risk of losing a bunch of federal funding because our carpool lanes are so clogged. Caltrans is contemplating a list of unappealing options to lessen the traffic. Meanwhile, folks across the country, but especially in LA are leaving their houses earlier and earlier to try and beat the rush and make it to work in a reasonable amount of time. LADN:

Jammed by growing traffic congestion, motorists across the country - particularly in Los Angeles County and city - are leaving home earlier and earlier just to try to beat the rush and get to work on time.

In ever-lengthening commutes, last year one out of every eight drivers said they left for work every day by 6 a.m. - up from just one in nine six years ago, according to new census data released today.

In Los Angeles County, where one out of every eight commuters already left for work before 6 a.m. in 2000, the number rose to one in seven as congestion grew from 3.7 million drivers to 4.2 million.

This trend is having a negative impact on the quality of commuters lives as they spend an increasing amount of time away from their friends, family and community.

Tim Lomax, a research engineer with the Texas Transportation Institute, a research agency in College Station, Texas, said research suggests civic involvement is down in suburbs where workers have long commutes.

"After a long commute, people are less interested in going to a city council or Parent-Teacher-Association meeting," Lomax said. "(Commutes) mean time away from family and time in a stressful environment, which results in a toll on people."

CalTrans is talking about upping the $341 minimum fine for carpool lane violators and increase the CHP patrols to catch offenders. The CHP is strapped for manpower as it is and such a move may require more overtime or officers.

The Federal Highway Administration requires carpool lanes to move at speeds of at least 45 mph during rush hour. Things are so bad that the bus drivers are now complaining about the slow rates of speed. Two of the obvious solutions are to build more carpool lanes and clean up accidents faster. Here are a few other ideas they are considering, none very popular.

That is the headline in today's LAT and deservedly so. Promises were not met, thousands of people went without power and they deserve an explanation for it. The LA City Council was asking for one yesteday, in order to make sure it never happens again. The Times called them "steamed" over the situation.

Council President Eric Garcetti said he felt that the city-owned utility misled the council when, on three occasions, officials vowed that they were better prepared to handle another heat wave than the one that crippled the power grid last year.

Instead, Garcetti said he spent much of the Labor Day weekend scrambling to get answers for residents in Silver Lake and surrounding areas who lost their electricity.

"The department looked us square in the eye and said they were prepared," Garcetti said at a City Hall news conference.

The other council members at the news conference -- Wendy Greuel, Tom LaBonge and Jan Perry -- said they now would demand monthly reports from the DWP on its infrastructure. They also want to see the department beef up its staff, but none detailed how to pay for doing so.

There are hundreds of jobs open at the DWP and thousands of pieces of equipment that need to be replaced. The DWP has been slow to act and it is great to see the Council using their leverage to force them to get a move on. Oversight is a good thing.

You know, it is great when public workers gets an article in the Los Angeles Times about being praised and greeted by smiling members of the public.

On the fourth day of misery, a big, white truck with a cherry picker at long last arrived on Avenue 52 in Highland Park to turn the lights back on. Los Angeles Department of Water and Power workers clambered out and started going through their gear. Neighbors stopped to look. A group of them gathered outside Doug and Teddy McDougall's house.

"Finally," said a smiling Edmond Legaspi, a father of four who has been avoiding the heat primarily by taking his children to the nearby Chuck E. Cheese's. "I've spent way too much money this week."

Too bad this could have been avoided if the DWP had actually invested properly in infrastructure. LA should not be having all of this equipment going offline, even when the system is strained. So, it is great that the workers are being praised and they should be for their enormous efforts to get the whole system back on line. But, this is yet another example of the fragility of the power system in LA.

Despite some power issues in Los Angeles, it was another wonderful labor day. It was a day filled with optimism for the labor movement. There are many battles to be fought, but LA Labor Fed is strong and growing. The LAT points to a few studies that show the while there is a lot of growth in low paying jobs, organizing in unions can help increase wages for workers.

One study released this week found that nearly one-third of Los Angeles County's 3 million full-time workers in 2006 had jobs paying less than $25,000 a year, with little if any health insurance. Jobs in the local economy's fastest growing sectors -- including food services, retail sales and transportation -- offer low wages and little health insurance, according to the study by the labor-affiliated Los Angeles Alliance for a New Economy.

A second study showed that robust labor organizing statewide had pushed up union membership rates in California to 16.5% in the first half of 2007 from 15.7% in 2006. The Los Angeles area posted slight increases, according to the study by UCLA's Institute for Research on Labor and Employment.

The study also found that union membership helped workers win higher pay and better benefits than their nonunion counterparts. In the first half of 2007, for instance, unionized workers averaged $26.82 an hour, compared with $21.58 an hour for nonunion workers.

We need to ensure that we do not build an economy based on low class jobs. Unions are the single best anti-poverty movement in history and their growth will be key to stopping that trend.

At a time when labor ranks are shrinking across the country, it is great to see Los Angeles growing. California has a strong labor movement and it is crucial that we keep it going.

This heatwave has been relentless. DWP workers are battling to keep the system going, however the intense heat in Southern California led to an all-time record power use before noon today. If people don't take measures to conserve electricity immediately, officials may be forced to issue a STAGE 3 POWER ALERT. This means ROLLING BLACKOUTS. Available capacity is extremely low right now and this may be their only option.

This is exactly what we warned about months ago. The DWP has not invested enough to keep the system going at a time of an heat wave.

It is an intriguing choice for his No. 2. LAT:

Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa announced today he had hired as his No. 2 policy advisor one of the city's top public interest lawyers -- an attorney who spent nearly a decade advocating on behalf of immigrants, low-income neighborhoods and homeless residents in need of legal representation.

Villaraigosa's deputy chief of staff will be Dan Grunfeld, president and chief executive of Public Counsel, the largest organization in the United States that provides legal aid to the poor and disenfranchised.

Grunfeld, who will coordinate Villaraigosa's policy agenda, has never worked for a government agency. Still, the Beverlywood resident said he had a background in policy, having teamed up with Los Angeles County Dist. Atty. Steve Cooley to fight elder abuse and having sued Kaiser Permanente over the alleged dumping of homeless patients on skid row.

Hopefully this choice will lead to some smoother sailing for the Mayor, after quite the rocky last couple months. Having an advocate for the poor in the upper ranks of the administration sounds like a good idea to me.

Color me confused, but what of consequence did the Republicans in the Senate get out of their month long hold out on the budget, other than the $700 million in blue line cuts? That was offered right at the beginning of the impasse. What they accomplished at the end might actually backfire on them. The Republicans wanted to try and restrict the ability of Jerry Brown to go after polluters. What they won in the end was a two year gap where the transportation bond projects cannot be slowed due to greenhouse gas emission concerns, and a few other minor things. The fact that it was not threatened in the first place seems to be of little consequence to the Republicans. Steve Mavigilio has all of the wonky goodness.

It has been interesting tracking Arnold's time management lately. He is attempting to balance his legislative priorities with helping speed the passage of the budget. Arnold knows that he can't get anything done until the budget is signed, yet he has found little leverage over the right-wing Republican holdouts.

Last week he spent several days visiting nursing homes and other sites that are directly feeling the impact of not receiving the money they are owed by the state. He strategically selected the locations for maximum impact on the Senate Republicans. They are still attempting to shake it off, and close their ears from the thousands of small business owners shouldering the burdens of the missing budget. It's folks like Janet Rios, featured in today's LAT who are feeling the most pain, especially fiscally:

By the time a state budget is passed, Janet Rios will be at least $4,000 poorer. That's the 19% in interest Rios says she must pay on loans to keep her two nursing homes afloat until lawmakers can agree on a spending plan.

Rios would seem to be a welcome client for any bank. The state pays her to take care of the elderly, and once the budget impasse is broken she'll get a bundle of money that has been delayed. She just needed emergency funds in the meantime to pay the Stockton homes' bills.

The state offered to guarantee the money in a letter she could take to her bank, Wells Fargo. But "they said that is not an acceptable thing to base a loan on," she said, and classified her as a high risk, with an interest rate to match on two $100,000 lines of credit.

The state won't reimburse her for the interest. Still, she said, she had no choice but to take the bank's terms. "We have to take care of 15 residents in wheelchairs. We have people getting fed through tubes in their stomachs. Some have seizures. Some need oxygen. There are a bunch of things we have to do. Nobody cuts us any slack."

The big companies and institutions who have pre-arranged credit, just in case of this type of situation. Most small contractors, nursing homes, clinics and day-care centers do not have that ability, so they fall between the cracks and rack up thousands of dollars in interest in order to keep their doors open. That is money that will come directly out of their programs, a needless waste of money.

Meanwhile, Arnold has attempted a new approach for local leverage. LADN:

There is nothing that a newspaper columnist loves more than a gotcha moment of contradiction with a politician. The article in today's LAT on Mayor Villaraigosa follows a well worn path. Politician makes a promise. Reporter gets a tip from one of their political rivals or comes up with the idea on their own. They do a little digging and find an inconsistency. Breathlessly, they publish it, allowing folks a whack at the piñata.

In this case, it was the Mayor's plea for individuals to cut back on their water use by 10%. One would think that they would have tracked his water use over time and shown that it would have gone up or stayed static to prompt a story. No, in this case it was the fact that his water use was significantly higher than comparable properties in the area. I am not going to defend the Mayor on this one. I am sure that he could find ways to reduce his water impact significantly. Indeed, what was greatly missing from this discussion was the use of native plantings, instead of lush landscapes that are water eaters.

Instead of prompting a discussion about ways politicians are working to reduce their water, or even finding proof that they have failed to do as promised, the immediately placed them on the defensive. In Villaraigosa's case, he had a unique defense: gophers.

Villaraigosa blamed his comparatively high water use at Mount Washington on gophers that chewed holes through a rubberized drip-irrigation system installed beneath his hillside backyard to protect against erosion and to ostensibly save water.

"We were unable to determine there was a leak. It's underground," he said. "We intended to conserve water by purchasing a drip water system."

Villaraigosa said he did not notice increases in his water bill because his wife handled that chore. "I didn't have access to those bills," he said.

Note to politicians: water bills are public information. They can be used to establish residency (Ed Jew in SF) or fodder for columnists like this one. I hope they follow up with the Mayor in a few months to see if he has gotten his act in gear. If he hasn't, then that is a real story.

Another day, another story about the devastating impacts of a missing budget on Californians. Today is comes the story of the 500,000 low income children who could lose their child-care due to the $1 billion in payments that are being held up by the lack of a budget. State Supt. of Public Instruction Jack O'Connell brought the issue forward yesterday. LAT:

O'Connell said thousands of licensed child-care programs served by the agencies are on the brink of closing, with many issuing IOUs to employees or taking out costly lines of credit that could mean future reductions in services. The ripple effect if programs cannot weather the budget delay could be devastating, he said, putting in jeopardy the jobs of parents who depend on child care as well as the state's 24,000 child-care workers.

"Many of the most vulnerable and helpless Californians are in fear of losing important services," O'Connell said during a news conference at the Emerson Children's Center in Burbank. "The programs provide developmentally appropriate instruction for students from the day they're born to 12 years old. The programs also provide meals, and for many children they are the most nutritious they will receive all day."

O'Connell accused Senate Republicans of refusing to agree to a balanced budget in a fit of gamesmanship over spending cuts that could have severe consequences for children and their families. Child-care providers are not the only ones at risk. The state Franchise Tax Board said Tuesday it was holding up 202,000 claims totaling more than $63 million in rental assistance to elderly, blind and disabled Californians pending passage of a budget.

Naturally, the Republicans are attempting to blame the Democrats for this disaster. They had proposed a emergency funding measure that would have just given them more leverage on the budget. It is the Republicans who are withholding the vote for the budget.

It appears that there are a few Republicans willing to vote for the budget as is, but are being held captive of their own volition to the tyranny of the majority of the minority. Got that? Confusing I know. See, despite their own personal feelings on the matter the Republican Senators banded together and refuse to vote for the budget, unless a majority of them support it. Passage of the budget right now is reliant not on a supermajority, or even a two-thirds vote, but a nearly unanimous vote. It is simply ridiculous and the cause of much suffering by the most vulnerable Californians.

Meanwhile 78,000 children in Los Angeles County alone could loves services, aka meals and child care, so their parents could make it to their jobs. It is forcing agencies to take out loans, which is eating up their funding in interest that could be going to services. California's poor children are going without meals, and seniors without rent checks. There is still no end in sight.

One of the rider bills that passed the Assembly with the budget allocated $150 million in state bond money for the synchronization of traffic signals in Los Angeles. The Republicans have now pitched a fit about it, despite the fact that they agreed to this back when the bonds were initially proposed last year. They are now trying to include it in the budget negotiations. LAT:

Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa said he was confident, after assurances from Nuñez, that the money was not in jeopardy.

"The millions of commuters who are stuck in traffic every day should not be further stalled by partisan bickering in Sacramento," Villaraigosa said Monday.

"The people were promised traffic relief when they voted for the bond, and we will continue to fight to make sure that the promise is kept."

City officials said signal synchronization would reduce traffic delays by 32% and reduce emissions by more than 900,000 metric tons per year, benefiting the entire region.

Talk about a measurable improvement and improving the quality of life for Los Angeles area residents. This is exactly the type of project that the voters had in mind when they passed the bond. The battle over this money is one of many examples of how the Republicans are using the dispute to try and leverage other changes that are beyond their power as the minority party. And it cannot be under emphasized that they are going back on their word.

Democrats say that the governor and legislative leaders, including Ackerman and Assembly Republican Leader Mike Villines, agreed before putting the transportation measure on the ballot that the bulk of the $250 million set aside for street signals would go to Los Angeles.

But the agreement was never put in writing, and the bond measure that came before voters did not mention any specific portion for the city.

Now, some discussion of the propriety of these types of backdoor deals may be in order, but one cannot ignore that they made that deal and now they need to stick with it. I am sure they got other things they wanted in separate side deals. It is doubtful that they want the Democrats to retaliate and pull those agreements.

The state is no longer paying all of its bills. Newspapers from around the state are now reporting on the impacts of the state's failure to pay what they owe. A hospital struggling with bankruptcy in San Pablo will not get it's Medi-Cal reimbursement payment. A adult day care center in Placer County is talking about shutting down until the budget passes. LADN

Overall, the State Controller's Office is withholding about $1.1billion this month for various state programs, including $170million to K-12 schools for programs including summer school and special education; and $140million to private-sector vendors who provide the state with property, food and other products and services.

The first payment of $327 million will go unpaid today. How schools and hospitals are able to cope, depends on their current fiscal situations.

"A state budget does interrupt the normal distributions of state aid payments to various districts," said Ron Owens, a spokesman for the California Community College system. "Some districts have reserves; others have special fund accounts from which they can borrow to cover the lack of payment in the short run."

In Los Angeles, 21 community colleges will miss payments today totaling about $103million.

The Los Angeles Community College District, which comprises nine of those schools, said it has enough money in reserve to continue campus operations and make payroll without disruption.

"It really won't have any effect on our district," said Jeanette Gordon, chief financial officer of the LACCD. "We have a payday (today). We have enough money to cover that payroll.

"We will probably have enough money to make it through an August payroll also. We are in healthy financial condition with our cash right now."

The longer this budget is stalled, the more and more organizations will run into financial difficulties. It will only get worse until they pass a budget.