L.A.'s walking dead

Eric, stop telling us that although the recession and the crazy contracts you and Wendy handed to city employees got us into trouble, you jumped into the fire to beat back the flames while others stood on the sidelines.

Wendy, we know you've convinced yourself, if no one else, that you've found $160 million in waste, fraud and abuse as city controller. But you don't seem as eager to explain how the city's fiscal problems were hatched when your were a council member.

Both of you, please quit telling us what you did or didn't do, because we'd rather hear about what you're going to do to ensure we don't die from a heart attack while the Fire Department offers six explanations for slow response times.

Measure A tanked, as both of you said it should. So now's a good time to explain how we pay for city services without the extra $200 million that half-cent sales tax increase would have generated.

You also both said you'd back killing a business tax that brings in more than $400 million a year? Time to show us the math on that trick, too.

Eric, we don't need consensus-building as much as head-cracking. Wendy, I beg you once again to stop telling us everything's on the table. It's time to throw things off the table and tell us where you stand.

And although there's no acceptable excuse for not voting, I want the candidates to know they should be ashamed of all the sensational, distorted, beside-the-point, lowest-common denominator crapola in their campaign fliers and TV ads. Whether those ads were independent expenditures or came from the campaigns, they stank from Pacoima to Pedro.

It's time for some adult conversation about your focus, your plans and your vision. Class things up, and maybe you'll motivate a few slackers to tweet their friends and find out where to vote.

Hey, I'm back where I started.

Stop with the excuses, non-voters. Cynicism is acceptable, surrender is not. Read the paper, for crying out loud. Educate yourself. If we pull together in the runoff, a 25%-30% turnout is possible.

steve.lopez@latimes.com

 
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