Of Hurricane Sandy and Mayor Villaraigosa’s love life:
Visit josephmailander.com immediately.
Joseph Mailander’s New York City piece, in the midst of Sandy, is outstanding.
New York City has been handed over to billionaire “rail estate” developers. Infrastructure be damned.
In NYC, the choice was to build a seawall or the Second Avenue Subway.
At this very moment, it is the public bus service that is rescuing NYC. The largest subway system in America is down for the near future.
Here in L.A., the MTA Board has eliminated one million bus service hours in the past six years.
Now the MTA wants the public to vote for a sales tax (Measure J) that will kick in on 1/1/’39 and last for 30 years to pay off $60 billion in future bond debt so that the “Subway to the Sea” might open two or three years earlier than now predicted.
When the next inevitable earthquake happens, the rail system, which currently is facing $1 billion in deferred maintenance, inevitably will fail … leaving L.A. County's 10 million residents dependent in that life-threatening crisis on a decimated fleet of aged buses.
Here is what Joseph Mailander wrote today:
I have lots of bouquets of blame to pass around this morning for the kleptocratic darlings who failed to make NYC sturdy enough to withstand its tangential brush with a Category I hurricane.
You may think it too early to do so, with fires still raging, generators swimming, and surge waters still clogging the tunnels. But ask yourself, if it was your town, would New Yorkers wait around much before pointing their fingers?
Besides, if you want a peek at what America would look like under Romney, take a look at what NYC looks like under his billionaire soulmate Bloomberg this morning.
It's been going on for years now, this infrastructure erosion in NYC. Just seven weeks ago, in fact, NYC/Bloomberg was noisily “warned” about the prospective consequences of higher surge levels – as the place and the Mayor have been, fairly ceaselessly, since his administration began.
From the New York Times in mid-September:
“Officials in New York caution that adapting a city of eight million people to climate change is infinitely more complicated and that the costs must be weighed against the relative risks of flooding. The last time a hurricane made landfall directly in New York City was more than a century ago.”
That was seven weeks ago.
Why wouldn't Bloomberg have lobbied hard for stimulus dollars to a worthy project like this? Why wouldn't the richest city in America, facing climate change, pull out all stops to prevent itself from becoming another Midwestern flood plain?
NYC under Bloomberg wasn't prepared for a Category I hurricane, but it did continue to appease its supercharged rental development community by striping all the bike lanes that it needs. Quite a trade-off, that.
The City, with ancient tunnels, below-ground generators, and increasingly inadequate sea walls, needed to shore itself over the past decade. Instead, it built Williamsburg and a bunch of tony rentals, and laid down a lot of mollifying lawn chairs, pocket parks, and bike lanes, just the way L.A. did. (Of course, L.A. isn't run by a billionaire realtor. It's just run by a guy who takes orders from a few of them, which may even be worse.)
I wonder what that hip ecological elevated garden looks like this morning.
…Tut-Tutting Hizzoner Himself
Hot-to-trot L.A. Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa unsuccessfully attempts to hide his messy love life off-stage.
Has Barack given the two lovebirds his Presidential blessing?
See Kate del Castillo's Wikipedia page for career details on the 40-year-old who just celebrated a birthday last Tuesday.
Ms. del Castillo lives alone in L.A. – except for occasional sleepovers by the Mayor. No kids. Kate is separated from her second husband and hopes that her third husband just might take her all the way to the White House where she might become the only First Lady/legal alien ever.
How about that steamy lesbian sex scene Kate del Castillo performed in front of the cameras with Eva Longoria in “Without Men”?
Is it true that the L.A. Mayor and Kate like watching that scene just before they hit the sack at Getty House?
Just asking out of pure curiosity.
Once again Mayor Villaraigosa fails trying to hide a big secret from hollywoodhighlands.org
Mr. Walsh may be contacted at hollywooddems@gmail.com
