Why Antonio Villaraigosa, Barack Obama's Top Cheerleader, Has Been Deemed a 'Failure' in Los Angeles

Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa

With the Democratic National Convention now over, it's clear that President Barack Obama has chosen, of all people, Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa to be a high-profile cheerleader for his 2012 re-election campaign.

That decision has caused a lot of head scratching in Los Angeles. He was, after all, deemed a "failure" by Los Angeles magazine and the "All-About-Me Mayor" by L.A. Weekly.

Since American voters will be seeing a lot of Villaraigosa in the coming months, and he'll undoubtedly push for a high-level White House job if Obama is re-elected, here are some important things they should know about our mayor...

In 2008, L.A. Weekly published the feature story "The All-About-Me Mayor," in which we found that due to numerous trips out of town, self-promotion events, and other time wasters, Villaraigosa had over a ten-week period only spent 11 percent of his time on the nuts-and-bolts work of running the nation's second largest city.

That's right. Only 11 percent.

"No mayor has been out of town like Antonio, not in my time in Los Angeles," former Daily News editor Ron Kaye told L.A. Weekly. "And part of his game is to be buried in nonsense. ... He needs to get to work!"

In the 2009 L.A. Weekly cover story "Envirowimps: L.A.'s Big Green Groups Get Comfy," Los Angeles-area environmentalists grumbled that when it came to environmental issues Villaraigosa had a "lack of vision" and was "slow [to] action."

"We're 12 years behind New York in making L.A. a green city!" exclaimed Melanie Winter of The River Project.

In 2010, L.A. Weekly ran the story "Villaraigosa's Five-Year Free Ticket Spree," in which we found that the mayor had controversially accepted free tickets for 80 events worth between $50,000 and $100,000.

"Villaraigosa has very quietly accepted -- and even angled for -- free tickets to as many as 80 pricey events," managing editor Jill Stewart and reporter Tibby Rothman wrote, "then failed to report all but one of them, as well as failed to keep records of his actions or the sources of this largesse."

photo by Ted Soqui

Vandalized Villaraigosa mural in East Hollywood

By the way, folks in L.A.'s Latino community aren't too pleased with Villaraigosa. In September 2009, an East Hollywood mural of Villaraigosa was splashed with red paint and tagged with the word "vendido," which translated from Spanish essentially means someone who has sold out his people.

In the 2011 L.A. Weekly feature story "City of Airheads," we found that Villaraigosa-approved budget slashing had decimated Los Angeles' once-proud public library system -- and that no other major city except for Detroit had shuttered its libraries two days a week.

"L.A. is known as a city of airheads," Sara Ring, an L.A. writer and mother, told us. "Then we go and cut the library budget. It doesn't send a great message to the rest of the country."

L.A. librarian Elyse Barrere noted that the library closings impacted the safety of young people in tough neighborhoods.

"I just keep thinking about those kids," she said. "The library was a neutral territory where the gangs didn't really come in. It makes me worry about them. It could be a very bad situation."

In 2011, the L.A. Weekly story "Los Angeles: Broke and Broken" noted that while Villaraigosa was cutting the library budget and other city services, he maintained the largest mayoral staff in the city's history at an annual cost of $42 million.

"There's no kind of holistic or systemic approach to running the city," community activist Stephen Box observed. "We're not improving or solving long-term problems, just postponing."

There's more we could share with American voters, but we'll leave it there for now.

Contact Patrick Range McDonald at pmcdonald@laweekly.com.

Tags:

Antonio Villaraigosa, Barack Obama, Democratic National Convention, Patrick Range McDonald, top cheerleader

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lollipoptheif

Not all the numbers that Mayor Villaraigosa has been associated with are as bloated as the billions (of dollars budget shortfall) mentioned in this article.

For example, consider election numbers.

Antonio Villaraigosa was able to win his reelection as Mayor of The City of Los Angeles as the choice of less than 6% of registered voters.

ChrisLoos

The mayor spearheaded the repeal of the federal ban on metro tunneling. Measure R also passed in 2008 on his watch, ushering in the biggest expansion of mass transit in Los Angeles history. These are huge successes for the mayor, and are well recognized in urban planning circles and amongst all the other big city mayors as well as city policy wonks everywhere. I wouldn't expect a writer that has spent so much ink poo-pooing LA's various transit projects to recognize these as wins, but I do.

mediaclasses

Are you mailing or emailing this article to The White House?

mauincali

@aswang pretty fluffy article though. No mention of public safety, subway-to-the-sea, infrastructure, etc. which i give him high marks for

JackHumphreville

The Mayor Who Broke LA has left us with a projected budget deficit over the next four years of $1.1 billion (and that is based on lots of budget trickery), an understated $10 billion pension liability, and streets, sidewalks, parks and the other infrastructure that need at least another $10 billion. And his 8 point pension reform plan is nothing but a drop in the bucket.

UNCLETOM

THIS ELECTION IS BARACK'S TO LOSE TONY VILLA JUST LOST IT FOR HIM. HE SHOWED THAT AIPAC RUNS THE DEMS AS CLEARLY AS POSSIBLE. JESUS, WILL I STAY HOME NOW!

tmarq3711

Please include the damage he has made with taking over school in the latino poorest areas, and made them worsth, Roosevelt HS, the Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa attended HS, although it was deemed unconsitution for the Mayor to take over the school, he put in place a partnership PLAS that for five years has not improve the API from 621, and the drop out has increase to 66%, an increase of dismissing students from school for any issue, no reason or cause sometimes, basicaly those student are special needs students. And Obama and the first Lady to be the Educational President. Although Mayor AV accused the RNC of putting brown faces on the screen just for votes, well he is the brown face for democrats from California, and one that does not earned to be call brown face.

cantaor

For a pretty damning headline, there's not much meat in the article. A pretty wimpy list of critiques, actually.

patrick.range.mcdonald

@cantaor Hi Cantaor, Thanks for reading and your note. I'm surprised by your critique, however. If you want further meat, click the links to all the articles I provided. There's plenty there. Also, let's sum up the list that's in the blog post. From we've found at the Weekly, and there's certainly more to add as I mentioned, Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa was found to spend only 11 percent of his time working (poor work ethic), he was found to have a "lack of vision" on environmental issues facing the city (poor political vision), he was caught taking free tickets worth $50,000 to $100,000 (using his position to not pay for things while the public does shell out that kind of money), some folks in the Latino community see him as a "vendido" (he's sold out his own community), he slashed funding for libraries so kids in bad neighborhoods could more easily fall prey to gangs--and, in the feature story, we found that senior citizens, immigrants, students, and the unemployed were also heavily affected by the budget cuts to libraries (not taking care of the needs of the disadvantaged, young, and old)--and while he's slashing city services he's taking care of himself and maintaining a huge staff at a cost of $42 million (looking out for himself and not the public). I'm not sure what your standards are for someone serving the public, but in many people's opinion that list adds up to a drastically sub-par performance by Villaraigosa. Thanks again. Take care, Patrick Range McDonald, LA Weekly

cantaor

@patrick.range.mcdonald Well, it's just that all those arguments sound like they would have easy retorts that weren't considered in the vehemence of the attack article. Free tickets? who cares, really. Graffiti red paint on a wall? Please. Libraries, it's a bummer but given the financial crisis, and the mortar & brick library as an iffy asset in the digital age, I understand that cut.

These are all small potatoes critiques. They make it sound like somebody had it in for the guy and was fishing very hard for supportive evidence and not able to come up with much substance.

patrick.range.mcdonald

@cantaor Hi Cantaor, Thanks for your reply. Please read the story about libraries. You'll see that your comment is misinformed and incorrect, and you actually have an outdated notion of what libraries do these days. All the items, and more like them, add up to a larger portrait of the mayor, which I outlined above. It's interesting you said there isn't much substance--that's exactly what I provided in a very factual way in this post that was not some kind of "attack" but a valid critique. Two very different things. Thanks again, Patrick Range McDonald, LA Weekly