Mayor Calls For Budget Cuts To Offset Millions In Occupy LA Costs

December 21, 2011 1:10 AM

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LOS ANGELES (CBS) — The City of Los Angeles reportedly faces millions of dollars in expenses brought about by the Occupy LA movement.

City agencies have been ordered to calculate what was spent on the Occupy LA protests.

Repairs to City Hall’s lawn where the Occupy group set up camp on Oct. 1 will require an estimated $400,000. The police action to clear out the encampment on Nov. 30 cost more than $700,000.

Additional expenses are attributed to hauling away debris from the camp, and cleaning up graffiti that defaced City Hall marble walls and trees.

Mayor Villaraigosa says more budget cuts will be necessary to offset the costs.

Mayor Calls For Budget Cuts To Offset Millions In Occupy LA Costs

Kheard

WTH!!!!! There’s nothing left to cut!!!

Tony

Send the Occupy Organization the Bill. Ops they say they are they have No money and besides it is their right. Well I guess it is the taxpayers right to Pick-Up the expense. LOL

NVRAT

Send the bill to the SIEU Union and George Soros.
jaline

Send the bill to Obama…or perhaps Nancy Pelosi. They thought the Occupy bunch was truly “grassroots” and such a wonderful example of democracy.
bob Henning

Of the Billions The Mayor and his Cronies Steal and Missapropriate Anually and he`s just trying to Put Negative Attention on the Protestors. He`s NOT THERE YET but Antonio V. wants so badly to be one of the ONE PERCENT. He`s proven a Hundred Times Over that he Couldn`t care less about the Average Citizen of Los Angeles.

Dave

Sure there is….cut off the welfare bums and illegals state benefits.

Astonished

Dave;

You’re talking apples and oranges here. The City of Los Angeles is stuck with millions of dollars worth of clean-up, not the State or Federal Government.

Personally, I think that dumb mayor and his woosy city council should have to foot the bill out of their private pockets. They invited those squattors to stay, they should pay to clean up after them.
Roland48

Raise the City Taxes.. that’ll help Mayor Villaraigosa get booted out next election and move all the dirtbags on his front lawn.. of course he just had a huge wall built around his house to keep just this kind of element away from his front door.
alg

ROLAND48 – Are you a soothsayer? a fortune teller? a futurist?
I ask because that is exactly what the Mayor is suggesting in a news article I read yesterday. Don’t know if it’s a rumor, but you never know. Our tax rate is outrageous as it is, and to raise it now, during terrible economic times and in the winter when it is very difficult to survive, I do believe if he does that, someone will pound in the last nail in his proverbial coffin.
keep up the good work. What else do you see oh wise one?
naman

Cut financial aid to the college students in the area, who made up most of the occupy movement. Show them that there is a cost to irresponsible behavior.

JustAGuy

Occupy cost LA millions with ABSOLUTELY NOTHING to show for it. Amazing!
CLevie

Of course there is more to cut…It’s called welfare!!
Patrick

I would like to see a line by line accounting of these expenses. I think they are inflated..How about it CBS want to do some home work?

Jackie Wilson

I could reseed the lawn for about $64.59. And great, finally money is being spent on the people. You can bet if your taxes are raised because of this, it won’t be used for sny of this. What a crock, $400,000 for a lawn. Besides, Occupy did not want their encampment torn down, so the mayor msde thst cleanup bill. Get real, we are the people, and it is time some money is spent on the people, instead of in the pockets of the wealthy. Way to go Occupy.
SETHCHAN

Right on, Jackie. We just spent three trillion on supposedly bringing freedom to Iraq and 7.7 trillion bailing out billionaires on Wall Street. I’ll go haves with you on the grass seed.
alg

IT APPEARS THAT THE MAYOR AND HIS STAFF,ETC., are not listening or reading our COMMENTS. I demand proof of the cost of this debacle.
WHERE IS WENDY GRUEL when we need her. Why isn’t CBS NEWS doing something about this. ??????
I guess we need to PROTEST AT CITY HALL again. ONLY THIS TIME IT HAS TO BE those that have to pay the taxes on this outrageous fortune.
DOWN WITH THE UNIONS. !!!!
DOWN WITH THE PENSIONS!!!!
DOWN WITH ALL THE PARTY EXPENSES!!!!
RECALL THE MAYOR NOW!!!!.
warn the City Council that they have to make amends. From my viewpoint most of their decisions and actions are sound and in the interest of the citizens.
A few mistakes here and there. We all make mistakes. Now it’s time to correct them, NOT TO COMPOUND THEM
DEMAND FROM THE CITY FATHERS THAT THEY REPEAL ANY LAW OR ORDER OF THE CITY THEY CREATED TO HARBOR ILLEGAL ALIENS. IT IS TIME FOR THE AMERICAN CITIZEN TO DEMAND RESTITUTION OF THEIR RIGHTS, AND THAT WE COME FIRST ABOVE ALL.
WHAT ARE YOU WAITING FOR. LET’S GO.!!!

L HEHR

occupy LA HEMORRHOIDS ,,,

STEVE RAER

CUT HELP TO ILLEGAL MEXICANS

iuui

Funny because how is it that the lawn could possibly cost $400.00 ?

wg//af

Public service unions.

Calls Out Idiots

Maybe you should go back to school and learn some math skills.
Unbelievable

How’d that government education work for you? Just to help you out a little. $700,000/10,000 = $70 or 10,000 x $70 = $700,000.
USArmyCombatMedic

@wg//af: You’re math is atrocious. If what you say is true and there were 10,000 cops and they only showed up on the 30th (already your facts seem flawed), that would be $70 per individual.

Let me break this down for you:

Bert and Ernie and 9,998 of their friends are hungry for cookies. But the Cookie Monster only has 700,000 cookies available. How many cookies do they each get? Well… 700,000 divided by 10,000 (9,998 + 2) equals 70.

Making sense yet? Don’t feel bad, you were probably out protesting with your teachers when they taught BASIC algebra in class…

*

that one i cant figure out – we put all new sprinklers in our yard – which isnt small and it wasnt even close to 1000, – and thats a BIG over estimation – Its ridiculous that people are going with out food, (the homeless population they ousted) and we spend that on something that seems so trivial in comparison…..
That is a complete waste of tax dollars !!!!!!!

*

* oh and piping too – with the new sprinklers
John Cavanaugh

Tony Villar is a complete waste of tax dollars.
MrLogical

You should have asked for a quote from the city public works department. Your ‘little’ lawn project wool probably have cost $20,000 dollars.
Calculator

WG/AF
That is $70 each if they show up. Idiot.
*

@US Army – That was perfect !!! Love My military guys !!!!! Hope your home and well
Frank

Well, your yard can’t be that big or you did it yourself or you used extremely cheap labor. Installing one valve, pipe and sprinkler heads is going to cost you. If that is an automatic sprinkler valve then it’s going to cost you more. The Occupiers were on that grass doing whatever can and did a lot of damage. Multiple that by a whole lot of yards your size and the cost goes up. Let’s not forget the damage to the tress, the buildings and the walls. It was never the right of the Occupiers to set up camp there.
Loving Life

Prevailing Wage is the point you are missing. Unions have caused to cost of manual labor to sky rocket. So it is not a BIG over estimation. It is a gross production of Unions molesting Prevailing Wage. Which was originally designed to help the little is now a way to break of Government and our Educational System and make the Unions rich.
*

Oh and to answer Frank – about the labor – How bout that – we did it ourselves:)And we went to lowes and home depot got everything we needed ….and put the back labor into it -so we could get some satisfaction out of the fact that we worked hard and can see the results……

Bruce_Almty

Sounds like the mayor is stuffing the political war-chest for the next election. You sure Mr. Mayor that you have not been smoking that grass???
Will Petra

overpaid tax payer funds for state gardeners. go to home depot. much cheaper to repair the 3rd world park.
Heather

They will need a public union to replant it…… So easily $400,000………

Joe’s landscaping could do it for $10,000 though!

UseSomeCommonSense

Some OWS on here want the Mayor to go down to Lowe’s or Home Depot (companies started and funded by Wall Street), hahah LIBS got to love’um. The Pee-Protestors were protesting companies like Lowe’s and HD. HAHAHAHA
Joe The Landscaper

That’s right! My illegals work for pennies so I can do the job much cheaper. I’m getting rich because those lame “public agencies” aren’t allowed to knowingly commit a crime by hiring illegals with tax payer money. Me and my Home Depot parking lot labor force take jobs away from American citizens every day and at the same time drag down the wages of the few Americans who can still find work. Ain’t this a great country or what? I am the 1%.

Jackie Wilson

Actually that is how government works, to give wealthy the money. They hire someone to do a study, they make money, than they hire a contractor, who kicks back a certain amount of money towards the mayors campaign, and you have too buy a few councilmen, etc., and that brings the figure to the $4000,000. Now Forbes had the study on the taxes not being paid by corporsations, they went to the IRS for the figures, and guess what GE even gets a refund, without even paying taxes in the first place. What a system, and you wonder why occupy exists. If you want to criticize you better learn your facts. Go see Senator Coburn’s site, where he says (Republican) government is Robin Hood in reverse.

Rit

God forbid the city spend that money helping the homeless get off the streets. It’s easier to sweep them back into ghettos than to ask rich people to pay taxes.

stupidlibs

Are you really this stupid?
If the rich did not pay taxes, their would be NO budget or government handouts for you to survive on.
How much of other people’s money do you and other parasites think you are entitled to?

Rick

How correct you are! I work for the rich; they’ve been cutting back since this started back in 2008 and they are getting ready to cut back more; that should tell everyone that the economy is about to get worse.
Joe

Stupid people are out breeding the smart ones. AKA Liberals….
alg

Your line of writing leaves me confused and wondering who the libs really are.!
Are you saying the rich pay taxes? If you take a look at the IRS series of reports and percentages of how many rich people really pay taxes, you will find that the MIDDLE CLASS pay 95 percent of all the taxes, including corporations. I found that a little surprising thinking that corporations would pay the bulk of taxes, but look; most of the big guys have MOVED OUT OF THE COUNTRY. It’s funny because the foreign auto companies are MOVING INTO THE COUNTRY.
I’m sorry to say you are misinformed on this matter and can’t blame this on STUPIDLIBS. The people who are mostly misled are republican conservatives who believe that RELIGION should be the ruling law in this country. I suspect you are one of them. you probably have money too. Have you ever helped anyone in your life?
Fantasywriter

Dear Alg, can you actually cite the report from which you obtained this information. Also, liberals consider those making $250,000 per year and have assets of over a million dollars the rich. If you are referring to the super rich most of those can be found in the Democratic community. They claim that they should be taxed more and as you know the IRS is perfectly willing to accept any amount over the amount that is owed.
By the way, there are very few, if any, conservatives who believe that religion should be the ruling law in this country. It’s point of view that liberals use but really can’t back it up. The answer to you guys is to constantly say, “Prove it, show me the evidence.”
Smack Dab

This person Alg is the biggest idiot I have read so far. Alg thinks the rich pay no taxes. Stupid. Then ask a rich person why he sends money to the IRS every year, sometimes quarterly and where it goes. Alg is clueless. Must be a product of the public school system. To think my taxes are probably supporting people like “Alg”.
gymlock

alg, Please, please cite your source. I get emphatically different numbers from the IRS website than your numbers. I suspect you are the epitome of someone who has a mindful of belief-based facts instead of fact-based beliefs.
gymlock

whoops…. that’s “mind full” and not mindful
Hawkeye

Alg,
You suffer from extreme Dunning-Kruger Syndrome. You are alos a flat out liar.

NICK WILSON

These were not all homeless people . Many were just lazy morons who want others to pay for their laziness. Others were anarchists ,america haters,, AND JUST FREAKIN LOSERS WHO NEVER SHAVE.
JByrd42

The rich pay way more than their fare share. You lazy, progressive libturds need to pay your fare share.

bakken boy

I agree. You know what would help the idiots in california? Some responsible oil and gas development, like is going in The Bakken oilfield of North Dakota and Montana. At least there they understand job creation. California is sitting on one of the largest shale oil deposits in the country – all we need is incentives to develop the resource in a responsible manner and everyone, I mean everyone get’s a job…. look at all the californias leaving to north dakota and sleeping in tents in the city park!

James

If people are really that concerned with homelessness, there are plenty of organizations that accept contributions that provide food, shelter, and medical care. The idea that somehow California is going to Tax its way to prosperity is laughable at best.
*

@Mr Logical – Thankyou for the voice of reason !! Law enforcement costs are necessary, if they are a little too much sometimes – oh well – I would rather feel safe in my bed knowing they are on the streets,,,,, But to say that that the revamping of a lawn is a little less than 1/2 a million dollars – even according to public works quotes as commented above is outright stupid!!! Im gonna say it again …..Maybe someone should touch base with Wendy Gruel and see about an audit of all these “so called budget cuts” and find out where the money is REALLY going……
Dave

Oh brother….more dribblings from a loser Liberal.
Gavin Snyder

Rit,
No amount of money is going to get the homeless off of the streets. Generally speaking, the homeless suffer from mental illness.

Give a homeless person half a million dollars, and most of the time they’ll stay on the street. The only difference is that instead of begging for change, they’ll make the occasional trip to the bank to make a withdrawal from the drug and liquor fund.
Sun

Our economy would be in alot better shape if the rich people just paid a little bit HIGHER in taxes and that would make our income inequality go down and LESS people on welfare but the problem is greedy rich people who want to keep their money and hire illegal immigrants to do those jobs which is contributing to the HOMELESS POPULATION IN CA BECAUSE THEY CANT WORK. So before you say ANYTHING about putting the homeless in ghettos how about telling your rich friends to let these people get JOBS instead of being GREEDY BECAUSE ITS DOING NOTHING BUT CONTRIBUTING TO THE ECONOMIC COLLASPE OF OUR COUNTRY.

Eric Slowik

What are they useing for grass seed ? Diamonds ?

*

I dont know – but i bet if one of those city workers went to Lowes or Home Depot – and supported their community – they wouldnt spend even close to that quoted rate !!!!!!

USArmyCombatMedic

Its due to the unions, people. Unions jack up the cost of everything. From their “clothing allowances” to the fact that they don’t believe they should pay a dime for their own retirement, they are the biggest drain of taxpayer funds. Sure, they were needed at one point. So was Social Security. Both of those are completely unnecessary in today’s times. What was the last “good” that a union as done? Change is difficult, but not impossible.
alg

I respect the fact that you are/were a usarmy medic.
I don’t agree that you should even compare on the same page the difference to the very destructive outrageous UNAMERICAN organization called the UNION.
SOCIAL SECURITY has prevented a great deal of suffering among the elderly along with MEDICARE. We all contribute to social security, and we pay for medicare.
UNIONS are absolutely USELESS and very draining on our economy. Most UNIONS who are very destructive are those that are GOVERNMENT BASED. That is CITY,STATE and FEDERAL. Finally, with actions by myself and many others UNIONS are being exposed for what they really are. An outrageous organization who line their pockets the same way the MAFIA did, and other criminal gangs. The revolution that is coming will certainly target the UNION executives as one of their first agendas.
Astonished

Those city workers are not allowed to go to Lowes or Home Depot. The City contract those expendature out to private businesses. Usually at a huge loss to the City. All in the name of “saving money while the truth is that such companies can and do charge exorbitant fees and prices for their goods and services, because the City signed a contract with them.

Actually, what THOSE City Workers would like nothing better than to do their jobs and repatirate the park, with equipment and supplies stored within the City. The cost would me phenomonally lower. Your City Leaders at work (or not)
Will

Exactly! The city harbors and protects illegal immigrants / workers making it harder on all us hard working tax payers. Why doesn’t the city use the very same cheap labor it harbors? Home Depot day laborors!! Labor would probably be half that!

I’m sure we’ll have to give the work to some sort of overly paid union worker instead.

jaline

Perhaps they’re planning on replacing the ruined grass with sod…which is quite expensive.

LADriver

Occupy L.A. is fully responsible for all cost incurred by their illegal actions. When a motorist hits a lightpole. The city bills the motorist for damage to city property. Same case with OLA/OWS. They have a presence on the web. They have a grass-roots movement with donations. Send them the bill.

*

your absolutely right – so why are we paqying for it with our taxes?

digitus

They should send the bill to OWS obviously.
Dracula

Because your mayor wants to be Governor or Senator and is not about to alienate these guys. He would rather stick his hand in your wallet.

walter

The bill for the protest should be sent to SEIU Local 721 at 500 south Verily Ave, Los Angeles. As for the lawn, Mario Brito promised to redo the lawn so he should be held to his word.

Astonished

Walter;

The address is 500 South Virgil Avenue, Los Angeles. And you’re partially correct. The mayor and the council encouraged these nuts to stay and by doing so deprived citizens of the right to use the park. I think the mayor and Council should foot the bill to repair the damage. You didn’t really believe Brito, did you?

walter

Actually, I did believe Occupy LA leader Mario Brito when he said they would re-sod the lawn.

I mean, union leaders are honest, right???

ketracel

The MAYOR let them sit there, defacing the building, ruining the lawn, and making a mess — let the money come out of his pocket. He’s the only one who had the power to let them stay (and the only reason he moved them out was because he was going out of town and didn’t want to let someone else steal his thunder by doing it during his absence.)

Gavin Snyder

I like your idea. He let them destroy public property, so I say let the mayor foot the bill out of his own pocket.

Robyn

This is not about the cost of Occupy LA, it’s another move by the mayor to cut department budgets, while enjoying his huge staff and limitless budget. I wonder how much of the money will come from cuts in the Mayor’s Office?

Astonished

Your kidding me right? Zero will come out of their budgets. More importantly, the total cost should come out of their private funds, not the City’s budget.

*

Maybe someone should touch base with Wendy Gruel and see about an audit of all these “so called budget cuts” and find out where the money is REALLY going……they dont need 400k to fix a lawn……thats rubbish !!!!!!
Robyn

I know the Mayor will not pony up. It will come from Departmental cuts. It always does.

randy

Take the test and join the department, then donate your salary to charity if you’re so righteous. Show ‘em how it’s done.

Land of fruits and nuts.

Well I guess someone doesnt know how the internet works. You have an ip address that your isp has to give to you so you can surf the web. Once you hit a website your ip address is registered on the site. So a simple lookup on the web and taa-daa I have your home address. Oh and if you used a wifi connection from where ever dont worry the processor on your computer or phone has an id number on it that is also logged on every site you have ever been on.

*

@ Land ….. i was wondering when someone was going to tell him that !!! Sooner or later they will either block him or catch up to him – and i hope he isnt a kid – his parents will be awful unhappy…….
Armed Texan

…well, unless you use a VPN.
Armed Texan

MAC codes are not registered. And a VPN hides your IP. YOU are the one who doesn’t have a clue, dillhole.
*

@Armed – this is a kid that is commenting everywhere (kid has a super dirty mouth) – I didnt know about them , granted – but Im positive he doesnt ….
*

@Armed-No adult would actually talk like that – or at least once in awhile they would makean intelligent comment – what is under those screen names is all filth
Hahaha

@Land
Haha, someone has been watching “Swordfish” way too often. IP addresses are not publicly linked to home addresses.

Punk.

Roger Thornhill

I guess the tent people showed Wall Street and the rich.

Commie_shooter

Lolol hilarious comment. Thanks for the laugh Roger.

GTH

Why aren’t the 300 or so that were arrested assigned 100 hours of community service and fined? The community service can go to replanting the park and the fines can help off-set other costs.
-
But no, the mayor would rather stick it to all of us instead…and if I’m not mistaken, wasn’t it this ding-bat mayor that SUPPORTED them in the first place? So better yet, lets take it out of his salary.

Astonished

You do realize, don’t you, that the Occupy LA movement is far from penniless. Channel 7 showed that they had a working budget of over $500,000.00 when they were squatting on the City’s lawn.

Maybe Wendy Gruel should take them to court and attach all that money. It would make a good down payment on repatriation of the land.

Gavin Snyder

And, ironically, most of that $500K budget came from……. wait for it….. CAPITALISTS!!!!
Chris

And just where will that $500,000.00 go now? I suspect that some Occupy LA leaders will have a Merry Christmas… oops, I mean, Happy Holidays this year.

whazup

Mayor Villa should donate his own money, after all he was at a fault for letting the “movement” continue. A big bowel movement on the backs of the taxpayers. Yes, the city could have spent this money on taking care of the homeless but their fellow occupy citizens thought better didn’t they? They could have protested without camping out and destroying everything but they are a bunch of whiny brats who think the world revolves around them.
Frank Black

Senor Antonio cuts fines for un licensed illegal immigrants causing death and mayhem on streets of LA and wants to cut services to citizens? Which country does Senor Antonio represent? Not USA it seems.

Astonished

Oh, but, see, he does that to show how sympathetic he is to those who should not be here in the first place. After all, how dare we, legal, law-abiding, hard-working citizens expect him to uphold the law against these poor downtrodden suckers and by doing so be polically incorrect? (Add any amount of sarcasm
you want here)

Shame on you!

john

other than being mathematically challenged you are pretty stupid as well. $700,000 divided by 10,000 is $70 each, not $70,000. tell you what; give lapd a call and demand that no cop ever come into your neighborhood ever again. since you are so big, bad and mean you don’t need any protection

James

Start handing out concealed weapons permits and watch the crime rate drop.

Larry

What good would that do? A permit doesn’t give anyone the right to use a weapon unless their life is in imminent danger.
boozy

good point…I do have one, and hopefully will never have to use it…but the BIG but is, if there are a lot of them out there, the bad guys do not know if you are packing, and truly know how to use it…I am one that does….check IDPA.com….if you want to truly protect yourself, family and others, you need to be involved with this organization and training…..
alg

Larry, THAT’S EXACTLY THE POINT. …..UNLESS THEIR LIFE IS IN IMMINENT DANGER, like I’m walking down the street, and someone comes up to me as says” give me all your money, or I’ll kill you”. Then you take out your gun (hopefully it is bigger than his, and you shoot him.)
believe me, soon rate would drop.
Rita Ippolito

and as a gun owner that’s the only time it should be used… duhhhh!

ALG

After reading all these comments, I agree to most of it. There isn’t any court in LA that would make the mayor or any mayor pay for the lawn , etc. That is not the point.
The point is that the mayor and his attendant’s would think for one moment that we believe the money that was spent on the OCCUPY LA movement.
I could find someone that would fix the lawn for a mere $10,000., and he would be making a 50% profit.
The police were already on duty and being paid. , so there is no cost there, ONLY REASSIGNMENT on the duty roster.
The clean up were city employees already being paid a salary. They were
reassigned to clean up duty.
I see no cost at all.
From all of your comments about the Mayor, I suspect he will not win if he decides to run. I do believe that there are two very responsible people in the City government that I hope will run for the office. We need a mayor that is responsible for the AMERICAN CITIZEN, and those who have filed for citizenship in this great city of Los Angeles. NOT someone who supports ILLEGAL IMMIGRATION. DO YOU AGREE?

Lighthope

You see no cost at all? You have absolutely no understanding of economics then.

All hours applied to the Occupy mess had to come from somewhere. But for the fact that the Occupy people were there, then those labor hours would not have been necessary. If labor hours are not necessary, then money could have been saved by not having another position filled. Labor does not come out of thin air.

Look at it a different way if you don’t like economics:

Police and clean up where there when they could have been somewhere else. How many 911 calls were delayed because the police were there instead? How much garbage was left around LA because the clean-up crew were there instead?

I have no sympathy for LA. You vote these people in and then whine when you get exactly what they promised they would do?

H. L. Mencken said it best: “Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want, and deserve to get it good and hard.”

Here are a few more for you–

“Democracy is two wolves and a lamb voting on what to have for lunch. Liberty is a well-armed lamb contesting the vote.” – Ben Franklin

Totalitarianism doesn’t need armies. It only needs to control a couple of things – the media, and the ability to dispense privilege to some, and to withhold it from others. Of course, a weak and divided people helps. – The last President of the United States (Amerika)

“I predict future happiness for Americans if they can prevent the government from wasting the labors of the people under the pretense of taking care of them.” – Thomas Jefferson

Teri Pettit

Except for the H. L. Mencken one, those quotations are fake.

The quote about the wolf and the lambs is attributed to Benjamin Franklin on the internet, sometimes without the second sentence, but it is not found in any of his known writings, and the word “lunch” is not known to have appeared anywhere in english literature until the 1820s, decades after his death. The phrasing itself has a very modern tone and the second sentence especially might not even be as old as the internet.

An internet search turns up NO version at all of the quote about the wolfs and lambs voting before 1992, when Marvin Simkin wrote in Los Angeles Times:

Democracy is not freedom. Democracy is two wolves and a lamb voting on what to eat for lunch. Freedom comes from the recognition of certain rights which may not be taken, not even by a 99% vote.

A rarer but more credible variation also occurs: “Democracy is two wolves and a lamb voting on what to have for dinner.”

The earliest for such a statement credits libertarian author James Bovard:

“Democracy must be something more than two wolves and a sheep voting on what to have for dinner.”
This statement occurs in the “Conclusion” (p. 333) of his book Lost Rights: The Destruction of American Liberty (1994), and was quoted in the Sacramento Bee also in 1994.

Variants of this statement include that by Larry Flynt, as quoted in “Flynt’s revenge” by Carol LLoyd in Salon (23 February 1999)]:

Majority rule will only work if you’re considering individual rights. You can’t have five wolves and one sheep vote on what they want to have for supper.

So this quote appears to have first appeared in the early 1990′s.

Astonished

AMEN AND THANK YOU!!

Pauline

The Mayor came out and supported their encampment the first week, so he should pay for the damages done after that. Cutting Department budgets to “pay” for this? Seems like a punishment for doing the jobs they’re already being paid for or he’s just lining his already bulging pockets with more of our money.

Whatever he decides to run for after he’s termed out of City Hall, do NOT vote for this idiot. He’s run the City into the ground in 8 years, wants to give illegals rights the rest of us don’t have, and now this.
czervik

Way to go, Mr. Mayor! You let them stay and tried to appease them. You should pay out of your own pocket. That is, unless you can get some of your Occupy buddies to pay out of all the contributions they garnered. You must have a least a few names. Sue them! Or pay yourself, you liberal idiot!

*

i’ll bet if he had to pay the bill it wouldnt be 400 thousand dollars for the lawn !!!!!!!
Somehow that number would mysteriously get ALOT Lower !!!!!

alg

***asterisk**** Hell no, if the mayor had to pay the bill, there would be a couple thousand illegals making 20 bucks a day, and it would all be cleaned up in an hour. over and out..

Dennis

Wasn’t it the Mayor who supported the LA fleabaggers and said she wouldn’t break the protest up. Let her pay for it!

Dave2

She s a HE…but you’re right! They actually considered giving the Fleabaggers an office in a city owned building at far discounted rent! Shows you the mindset of these people!

Doug

A HE with no nuts. I understand the confusion.

alg

DENNIS – I didn’t know our Mayor was a FEMALE? What planet are you from?

Chris

I’m guessing that Dennis confused the LA mayor with the Oakland mayor who, by the way, mannaged to do an even worse job in handling the Occupy mess.

Doug

If Little Tony had an guts he would have controlled the situation before the damage took place. The right to free speech does not include the right to destroy property. You could replace that clown with a sand bag and have better government.
David

Instead of cutting funding why doesn’t the city do the RIGHT thing and make the protesters to pay for the damage they did and the additional law enforcement and other city service costs required due to their irresponsible behavior?

Although, it’s probably a good thing that the public realizes just what these leftists and their months of squatting has cost them. It’s also a good thing that Obama and other Democrats tied themselves to and supported what these people were doing, especially in an election year. After all, Obama said point blank that these occupy protesters are the reason he ran for President. I can just see the campaign ad now, a list of the millions upon millions of dollars in damage done by these protesters with Obama’s words playing in the background.
Jimmie Enderfield

Tax the 1% in Hollywood and make them pay for the damages done by the Flea Baggers! hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha.
Only in blue state, liberal lalaland! LMAO!
Jack White

But that’s OK since the cuts will only affect the 1%, right?
EdG

Boo-hoo, it cost LA a couple million to clean up from citizens protesting about BankGangers from Wall Street pillaging trillions of dollars from the American people. Cry me a river, 1%-ers.

USArmyCombatMedic

You are a fool if you think these budget cuts will affect the wealthy. The wealthy are wealthy because they do not spend what they don’t have. So during hard economic times, they actually have funds saved up. Imagine that? It’s called “Planning for One’s Future”. It’s truly not hard.

I type this as a so called 99%-er. I have money in an “Emergency” Savings account. (Emergencies do NOT include no money for beer or money for those new rims I’ve been wanting). I also have money (not much, but some) in an a separate account for my future children. That’s right. I’m planning ahead. I want them to go to a good school, or if they want, use it to build themselves a business. Do you save anything? When it comes down to a new ride “cuz it looks sick” or saving your money, which choice do you make? If you spend it, you have nobody to blame but yourself.

Doug

Sounds like you have a case of personal responsibility. Me too. I guess we never learned to sit on our rear ends and blame others if things don’t work out.

JOe Dutra

You morons keep voting these Democratic losers into office. When will you learn? I left California 10 years ago. Never looked back.

Dorkyman

Ditto here.

Lived in various parts of LA for decades, then moved 10 years ago, so glad I did. It’s not the wonderful friendly place it once was. The local government is rotten to the core, and the way your idiot mayor handled the Occupiers is a great example.

Perhaps the Big One will really make LA and SF slide into the ocean, and we can start over. One can always hope.

Jon Lussier

I agree. I left there as well. Best choice we ever made.

USArmyCombatMedic

The problem is, putting one’s head in the sand is not exactly a good policy either. Take a look at the national political landscape, and ask yourself how far you are willing to move.

I live in Orange County, CA because I love the weather, beach activities, snowboarding nearby, plenty of nightlife, etc. When people move away, it actually makes it harder to turn things around. Think about it: the federal government takes many of it’s most liberal ideas from the states – namely California. If we can squash it here first, we are all a lot better off.

True, I wish this state were more conservative. But it’s almost entertaining watching people flounder due to their own stupidity, while I save and invest what I earn.

Tim Quigley

Keep voting for Democrats! Californians never seem to understand that you get the govenrment that you elect! Vote for corruption, you get corruption. Vote for loonies, you get loonies.