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LA mayor says city should pay for Jackson memorial
LAPD police patrol around the Staples Center before the memorial service for musical legend Michael Jackson in Los Angeles on July 7, 2009.
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LA mayor says city should pay for Jackson memorial
LA mayor says city should pay for Jackson memorial
Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa said Monday that the city should bear the public safety costs of the Michael Jackson memorial. Villaraigosa was out of town during the memorial. His comments were his first on the matter since he returned. KPCC’s Frank Stoltze reports.
The mayor said that big events regularly occur in Los Angeles, and that the city is responsible for providing public safety during them. He labeled as “ridiculous” his staff’s decision to establish a Web site soliciting public donations to pay for the Jackson memorial. The city’s shut that Web site down.
Villaraigosa also said he opposed efforts to seek reimbursement from the Jackson family or AEG, the entertainment company that produced the Staples Center event.
Several city council members want AEG to help pay the public safety costs, and have asked for a full accounting of the memorial’s costs. Estimates range from almost one-and-a-half million dollars to more than twice that. City Attorney Carmen Trutanich is investigating who’s liable for the costs, and why AEG wasn’t required to get a permit before it restricted access to public streets.
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