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Office of the Mayor: It's a Private Matter
Los Angeles Times: It's now a public matter
Back in May of last year, LAT's Steve Hymon rounded up who drives Hummers at City Hall and found that the city's Transportation Deputy for the Mayor drives a Hummer H3 (link expired). Now Columnist Steve Lopez is pressing the issue in today's paper.
It's easy to jump on Lopez's bandwagon because Hummer's are, like, evil and stuff, but we must not misconstrue Deputy of Transportation to be Deputy of Public Transportation. He has the right to drive to work, but Lopez is correct that Mr. Transit in a Hummer is like "having a surgeon general who smokes unfiltered Camels while snacking on Cheetos."
The LA Times has made Jaime de la Vega sound like a pretty dumb and brutish guy. We haven't met de la Vega yet, so we'll reserve our opinion until then. In the meantime, the public may have just lost faith in the Mayor's transit man. Not everyone reads LAT, but this will spread across the city. Everyone talks. EVERYONE LIKES TO BITCH ABOUT TRAFFIC.
Now, the ball's in the Mayor's court. What will they do?
Photos via FUH2.com (Hat Tip to World Changing LA for the link)
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I forwarded Steve Lopez's column to a whole bunch of people and am sure it will be picked up by the local talk radio folks (John & Ken, Al Rantel, etc). This transpo chief is clueless! I was also disappointed that he claims not to have looked at the latimes.com/bottleneck comments that were revelatory in substance and great ideas. Villaraigosa MUST make a change. Even if the transpo chief trades his Hummer for a Prius, it's too late; he's already proven himself to be an unworthy character for the job.
I'm up for everyone going after this guy's job. Who is his boss? The mayor?
Put an idiot in the Mayor's office and he will put his idiot cronies along side them too.
Man, I was laughing silly at that article. Especially when Steve Lopez recited that Rosa Park's quote hanging on the deputy's wall, "Every person must live their lives as a model for others." Hmmm he sure ain't with the Hummer.
You go Steve!
What is really scarry about Jaime? Well, for one, he is almost inaccessible to those that should have access. One official of higher rank came to me after the Metro Board Committee meetings the other day to volunteer that Jaime never, NEVER, returns phone calls and he is never there to take any.
So, how does he reach Jaime? Well, he has to go out of his way to meetings where Jaime can't hide or keep his distance from the public such as the Board of Airport Commissioners.
Those that don't know, should know that Jaime had Richard Reardon put his name in the hat back in 2001 for a finalist interview for Chief Executive Officer of the LA County Metropolitan Transportation Authority. Fortunately, the Board chose Roger Snobe and John Catoe to run the $3 billion agency. And, I believe it's been well run.
Whether this is just a tempist in a teapot or a big storm, I still don't know. I can say that Jaime thinks we should all get around on buses, not trains. But he sure isn't pushing the Wilshire Bus Only Lanes from Western to West Los Angeles. He lets LADOT run all over him, as in "the car is king".
As far as I can tell, Jaime doesn't read much of anything. Sure he doesn't look at the Steve Lopez suggestions. Lower on the ranking is my own transit eNewsletter. His record is solid. He hasn't looked at it in nearly a year.