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# LA Mayor Has Himself in a Political Pickle
February 22 2016
Written by Ken Draper.
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CITYWATCH—Let’s be clear at the outset: I want our mayor to succeed. It is not my goal or my nature to push for a great LA by wishing that LA’s leadership fails. But, let’s also be clear about this: Our mayor has himself in a political pickle.
CBS’ David Goldstein has Eric Garcetti squirming these days over the ‘Turf Terminator’ mess. This is one of those shady ‘appearance-of-quid-pro-quo’ deals where even if it’s not illegal, anyone as smart of our mayor has to know it’s not going to look or smell right.
Better yet, smart enough to know that no one is going to believe that he was out promoting the Turf folks out of the goodness of his heart and it had nothing to do with the big time bucks that the Chief Terminator contributed to the his election campaign. And, if he’s not smart enough to know that, well … he shouldn’t be our mayor.
As always, it was the denial that got him in the most trouble. Most people know and accept the serious flaw of an election system that costs zillions to campaign for office and in turn requires candidates and electeds to spend half of their time raising money.
And, speaking of raising funds, [the Times reported](http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-garcetti-2017-reelection-fundraising-20160201-story.html) recently that the mayor’s fund-raising train slowed to a crawl in the second half of 2015. Probably no connection, but then again ... maybe some other folks are beginning to ask the integrity question.
I would like our mayor to be ‘smarter than a fifth grader.’ I think he ought to come clean about the Turf Terminator connection. I would like Eric Garcetti to begin treating us like we’re smart enough to know when we’re being jived. I would like the mayor to know that if he continues to govern by manipulation over transparency and frankness, he does so at his own political risk.
[Take a look at the Goldstein video report](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2PTm6ZagGlE) … which also features CityWatch Watchdog, Jack Humphreville … and tell me what you think.
*(Ken Draper is the editor of CityWatch. He can be reached at )*
-cw
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