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No more are the days where Mayor Villaraigosa is a rock star celebrity who stood as a symbol of change for Los Angeles. The LA Times this weekend, along with LAist late last week, questioned the Mayor's time on the road with the Hillary Clinton campaign. The Mayor says the trip scheduled to end Wednesday comes to an end today because a lot was already accomplished, but the Daily News speculates the reason came "amid complaints."
18 days of out the last 65 days were spent with the campaign. The Mayor's press aides tell the Times that "he hasn't missed any important events at home..." And that may be part of the core problem: it's not about attending events or making them out of press conferences. This is about doing work.
In another article by the Times, this one in the Sunday Magainze, Villaraigosa is put up against the super-cities, if you will, as a mayor and is pretty much slammed: "Nearly three years into his tenure, though, the mayor’s grandest plans have barely inched forward. Instead, he has fallen into the politically expedient trap of pushing for wider freeways and streamlined traffic on the city’s major boulevards."
And how does one elevate this city back into the higher ranks as a super-city? The magazine opines on one issue we can all agree with. "So what are the three most pressing issues Villaraigosa should look to solve during the balance of his administration? That's easy: Transit, transit and transit. It's hard to imagine a Los Angeles 50 years from now attracting new brain power or the foreign investment that might pay for bold new architecture without a successful effort to free Angelenos from gridlock and give them other ways to navigate the city."
