Friday, August 7, 2009

Nuthin’ to Say

This week’s recap is more pictures than words.

Politicians and Other Characters Roam the ‘Taste’




City Attorney Nuch Trutanich, top photo, parked himself near the Redmen’s Lodge booth at last weekend’s Taste in San Pedro. Trutanich was among the political figures who made appearances Sunday, as did City Controller Wendy Greuel, Councilwoman Janice Hahn, State Assemblywoman Bonnie Lowenthal and Assemblyman Ted Lieu. Another character present was the Cabrillo Marine Aquarium harbor seal, posing for pictures and humbly collecting donations from the tasters.

Good Clean Fun



The aforementioned city attorney was photographed taking the plunge at the recent picnic for city attorney employees. Into the dunk tank went the leading lawyer and, sure enough, someone had spot-on aim. Case closed. See the whole photo gallery here.

4 comments:

Unknown said...

I went to the Taste of San Pedro and left with some disappointment. The only thing that I didn't like about it what that there was two different things you had to pay for.

-Benjamin

IronHead433 said...

beer & whine........??

Anonymous said...

Los Angeles Daily News

Half off: Cutting pay of L.A. city officials worth considering

THE nascent effort to cut the pay of Los Angeles city politicians by half could have a simple, but effective campaign: Just publicize their pay and perks.

The annual salary alone is enough to ignite ire in City Hall, where most workers are seeing their pay cut due to furloughs.

City Council members: $178,789
City controller: $196,667
City attorney: $214,546
Mayor: $232,425

In addition to the six-figure salary, elected officials also get a city car, free gasoline and expense accounts.

Once the average Angeleno sees how much their electeds collect, and ponders the quality of city services in recent years, chances are they will eagerly endorse this "50-percent solution."

The City Hall half-off initiative is the brainchild of Doug Epperhart, a publisher, community activist and member of the Coastal San Pedro Neighborhood Council. He complains that city leaders, from the mayor to the 15 City Council members, are seriously overpaid.

"They make more than senators and congressmen, and they're paid way more than state legislators," Epperhart said.

He aims to "right size" the salaries of city politicians by cutting them in half. Currently, their wages are tied to judge's salaries - which have been going up and up, resulting in a 25 percent increase since 2005.

Epperhart has proposed an initiative for the November 2010 ballot that would insert the word "half," into the City Charter so that city leaders' pay scale would be half that of judges. City Council members would earn $89,394; the controller would earn $98,334, and so on.

Public opinion of politicians is pretty low these days, and many voters would probably happily support slashing the pay of elected officials.

LA Daily News
http://www.dailynews.com/ci_13032737?source=rss_emailed

IronHead433 said...

Missed it by that much...............

the half slash story is three stories down..